Linking Pan-European data to the local scale for decision making for global change and water scarcity within water resources planning and management

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.05.259

Science of The Total Environment

Volumes 603–604, 15 December 2017, Pages 126-139

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.05.259 Get rights and content

Highlights

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A new approach is provided to link Pan-European data to local scale within CC.
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A modeling chain is developed to improve long-term measures for basin management.
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Results are probabilities in order to assess the reliability of water supplies.
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The reduction in precipitation from the 80s is not contemplated in RCM projections.

Abstract

This study focuses on a novel type of methodology which connects Pan-European data to the local scale in the field of water resources management. This methodology is proposed to improve and facilitate the decision making within the planning and management of water resources, taking into account climate change and its expected impacts. Our main point of interest is focused on the assessment of the predictability of extreme events and their possible effects, specifically droughts and water scarcity. Consequently, the Júcar River Basin was selected as the case study, due to the ongoing water scarcity problems and the last drought episodes suffered in the Mediterranean region.

In order to study these possible impacts, we developed a modeling chain divided into four steps, they are: i) data collection, ii) analysis of available data, iii) models calibration and iv) climate impact analysis. Over previous steps, we used climate data from 15 different regional climate models (RCMs) belonging to the three different Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) coming from a hydrological model across all of Europe called E-HYPE. The data were bias corrected and used to obtain statistical results of the availability of water resources for the future (horizon 2039) and in form of indicators. This was performed through a hydrological (EVALHID), stochastic (MASHWIN) and risk management (SIMRISK) models, all of which were specifically calibrated for this basin.

The results show that the availability of water resources is much more enthusiastic than in the current situation, indicating the possibility that climate change, which was predicted to occur in the future has already happened in the Júcar River Basin. It seems that the so called “Effect 80”, an important decrease in water resources for the last three decades, is not well contemplated in the initial data.

Graphical abstract

Introduction

Climate change is a natural process that has been accelerated by human influence, due to the huge amount of emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. It is related to human development, growth and consumption patterns (Vargas-Amelin and Pindado, 2014), and currently these emissions are the highest in history (IPCC, 2014). However, it is not the only factor that contributes to climate change, as could volcanic activity and ocean circulation also be contributors, however burning fossil fuels and industrial processes have been recognised by scientific communities as the main contributors that have increased the concentration of CO₂ in the atmosphere (IPCC, 2014), consequently these factors could be the main contributors that are responsible for the increase of the Earth's temperature.

In addition, it is known that the Mediterranean area is becoming drier, and therefore more vulnerable to wildfires and drought. There is an elevated probability that Mediterranean river basins, as many other semi-arid regions, will suffer an important decline in water resources availability attributable to climate change (Vargas-Amelin and Pindado, 2014). In the coming years, it is expected that the increasing water demand in combination with water scarcity due to climate change will intensify the current water stress.

Many studies suggest that climate change will amplify the frequency of current problems (Bates et al., 2008), and within Europe, Spain is one of the most exposed countries to climate change, caused by its socio-economic and geographic features (MMA, 2005). Moreover, the general pattern of the projected models indicate a decrease in precipitation and an increase in temperature for this area (Estrela et al., 2012, Garrote, 2009), within its limitations regarding the uncertainty, the spatial resolution, the projections range and their complexity among others. This could lead to an intense competition between different user groups and sectors due to the possible prolonged periods of water scarcity where water is already limited today (van Vliet et al., 2015), all related to social, economic and environmental impacts. Thus, it seems clear that the adaptation to climate change necessarily implies the participation of scientists, governments and society.

In this sense, the European Union (EU) Roadmap on climate services (European Commission, 2015) represents the convergence between society's actionable research and the faculty of the climate research community to support personalized knowledge, information and data (van den Hurk et al., 2016). Therefore, if society is aware of the existence of a reliable forecast, then the anticipation for extreme events could become a very operative adaptation measure (van den Hurk et al., 2016).

Knowing all this, a new methodology based on a modeling chain (hydrological, stochastic and management models) is presented in this paper with the aim of creating a link between climate services and decision-making in water resources planning and management at the river basin scale. It is based on the application of a decision support system, in order to support adaptation, mitigation and reduce risk disasters. To accomplish with this objective, the assessment of the effects of global change in the Júcar River Basin (east of Spain) was performed to evaluate if current urban and agricultural requirements could be suitably met under future changing scenarios.

This process begins with Pan-European climatic data from the E-HYPE hydrological model belonging to the SWICCA Copernicus Project (Service for Water Indicators in Climate Change Adaptation). This projects aim is to bridge the gap between institutes who provide climate-impact data on one side, and water managers and policy makers on the other. As several authors have highlighted (Donnelly et al., 2016), the E-HYPE model presents some inconveniences in the Mediterranean area, presenting some gaps in evapotranspiration, aquifers and water extraction among others (Donnelly et al., 2016). Thus, it was necessary to correct climate data and use a modeling chain specifically calibrated for this area. The importance of this is to obtain reliable results that should be able to detect future periods of drought and avoid the possible impacts associated with them. In this sense, it could be possible to know of droughts in advance and make the right decisions by preventing impacts to water resources availability in the future. In addition, it could be incorporated to other countries or river basins affected by water scarcity into water planning.

Section snippets

Materials and methods

The methodology presented in Fig. 1 was developed to connect Pan-European data to the local scale in order to assess the state of the system and to propose the measures required in future periods, taking into account the impacts of water scarcity due to global warming. It is represented by two pathways (depending on the origin of the data), which interact with one another and finally converge in a final step.

Pan-European and historical data collection are the first step of the methodology. Once

Description of the basin

The Júcar River Basin is one of the nine water exploitation systems of the Júcar River Basin District, which is placed in the East of the Iberian Peninsula (Fig. 2) and flows into the Mediterranean Sea. In this district, the Júcar River Basin is the main water exploitation system due to its extension (22,186.61 km²) and the volume of water resources (1605.4 hm³/year). Its drainage area belongs to the provinces of Cuenca, Teruel, Albacete and Valencia.

In the inland part of this basin (north) is

Precipitation bias correction results and PET estimation

Firstly, a comparison between the precipitation values provided by Pan-European data and the historical ones from the reference period is necessary to verify the consistency and reliability of the data. This assessment was done for the five sub-basins defined in Section 3.2 and it is presented in Fig. 5. In order to remove possible errors from the climate models, a bias correction was applied to transform Pan-European data into more similar observations. This bias correction was based on a

Discussion

This study is based on an innovative methodology that combines the use of Pan-European data with hydrological models, stochastic models and multiple simulations of future management focused on water planning. In this field, other works have been conducted with certain nuances. As an example, Haro et al. (2014) analyzes a risk assessment approach within-year operated systems in order to estimate the probability of operative drought in the forthcoming months. So, depending on the risk associated,

Conclusions

The main objective of this research is to develop, implement and validate a novel approach to link climate services with decision-making in water resources planning and management within climate change and water scarcity. The methodology presented comprises several steps consisting of a hydrological model, a stochastic model and multiple runs of a water management model. Each of these steps requires an exhaustive and detailed analysis, since the decisions considered for them can influence the

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments, suggestions and positive feedback. All remaining errors, however, are solely the responsibility of the authors. We would also like to express our gratitude to the Júcar River Basin Authority – Confederación Hidrográfica del Júcar (Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Fishery, Food and Environment) for providing data to develop this study. The authors wish to thank the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness for its

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Linking Pan-European data to the local scale for decision making for global change and water scarcity within water resources planning and management

Highlights

Abstract

Graphical abstract

Introduction

Section snippets

Materials and methods

Description of the basin

Precipitation bias correction results and PET estimation

Discussion

Conclusions

Acknowledgements

J. Hydrol.

Clim. Serv.

Agric. Water Manag.

J. Hydrol. Reg. Stud.

Clim. Serv.

Clim. Serv.

J. Hydrol.

J. Hydrol.

J. Hydrol.

J. Hydrol.

J. Hydrol.

J. Hydrol.

Key factors for improving large-scale hydrological model performance

Eur. Water

Climate Change and Water, Technical Paper of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Development of a conceptual deterministic rainfall-runoff-model

Hydrol. Res.

Plan Hidrológico de la Demarcación Hidrográfica del Júcar

Using flow signatures and catchment similarities to evaluate the E-HYPE multi-basin model across Europe

Hydrol. Sci. J.