nl-NL webmaster ZET solutions b.v. Mon, 20 May 2013 10:50:50 GMT copyright This report provides an assessment of the consequences of changing water availability for production of drinking water, the manufacturing industry and power production in Europe, due to climate change and socio-economic developments. The report is based upon projections of demographic and socio-economic trends and climate change impacts, according to the SRES A2 and B1 scenario’s also used by IPCC. Chapter 2 deals with water quality impacts of climate change in a European context, focusing solely on chloride and water temperature. Chapter 3 deals with water demand of domestic and industrial water use (manufacturing and power production), water availability and water stress on a European scale, as projected for the time horizons 2050 and 2100. http://www.eu-watch.org/technicalreports/10742438/WATCH-Technical-Report-Number-55-Water-for-utilities-Climate-change-impacts-on-water-quality-and-water-availability-for-utilities-in-Europe"> Thu, 15 Sep 2011 19:29:55 GMT EU WATCH This technical report addresses to assess how the uncertainty of climate models, GCMs as well as RCMs, is propagated on to hydrological models including the effect of downscaling required for the latter. This report presents a methodology to evaluate the uncertainty propagation. The method is general and can be applied to any hydrologic model, regardless of its complexity, in terms of both, the accounted processes and also the spatial discretization of the model (i.e. lumped or distributed models). The results are presented in terms of meteorological and hydrological droughts. We find that the BC forcing overestimates the most extreme drought events (greater deficit) of both, the aquifer storage and the ground water recharge. The DS forcing underestimates the most extreme drought events (greater deficit) of both, the precipitation deficit and the ground water recharge. http://www.eu-watch.org/technicalreports/10737954/WATCH-Technical-Report-Number-54-Methodology-for-the-assessment-of-uncertainty-in-hydrological-extremes"> Tue, 30 Aug 2011 10:41:31 GMT EU WATCH 21st century climate change is likely to have a significant impact on the hydrological cycle and thus has the potential to impose additional water stress in several regions. Thus, this study focuses on the assessment of the implications of climate change for global hydrological regimes and related water resources states for the 21st century. Different climate and hydrological models show quite different projected changes with a large variation of uncertainty within the climate - hydrology modelling chain. Therefore, multiple climate and hydrological models were used within the European project "Water and Global Change" (WATCH) to assess the hydrological response to climate change and to project the future state of global and large scale water resources. Climate model data were taken from projections of three coupled atmosphere-ocean General Circulation Models (GCMs) (ECHAM5/MPIOM, CNRM-CM3, LMDZ-4) following the A2 and B1 emission scenarios. Due to the systematic errors of climate models, their output has been corrected with a statistical bias correction method and then the output was used directly to force global hydrological models (GHMs) (MPI-HM, LPJmL, WaterGAP, VIC, MacPDM, H08, GWAVA, JULES) to calculate the corresponding changes in hydrological fluxes. The analyses focus on the changes in the hydrological characteristics for twelve large, continental river basins without taking into account direct anthropogenic influences in the hydrological simulations. The hydrological cycle was evaluated and multiple-model based projections were analysed for the terrestrial components of the hydrological cycle focusing on the time period of 2071-2100. Global maps are constructed to identify regions where the water cycle and associated water resources are significantly impacted by climate change, and which regions are vulnerable to these changes in terms of e.g. water availability. The uncertainties due to the choice of GCM and GHM are also assessed. http://www.eu-watch.org/technicalreports/10826413/WATCH-Technical-Report-Number-45-Projected-hydrological-changes-in-the-21st-century-and-related-uncertainties-obtained-from-a-multi-model-ensemble"> Thu, 25 Aug 2011 16:02:56 GMT EU WATCH The WATCH project has the ambitious aim of assessing, for the first time, the impact of climate change on the water cycle at a global level and regional level. As a means to transfer this knowledge to researchers a summer school for postgraduates and early career scientists was organises. A particular effort was made to include participants from developing countries who may not normally have access to such events. The summer school was designed to be a combination of presentations on the results from the different work blocks of WATCH, as well as including more collaborative training modules where participants would learn the novel approaches undertaken by WATCH researchers. In essence this summer school was a summary of the key areas of WATCH work and its major results were presented. http://www.eu-watch.org/technicalreports/10734807/WATCH-Technical-Report-Number-50-International-Summer-School-on-Water-Resources-and-The-Water-Cycle-in-a-Changing-World"> Wed, 03 Aug 2011 16:32:33 GMT EU WATCH The effect of the IPCC A2 emission scenario on the future variability of global runoff is analyzed as a change in variability may impact the generation of extreme hydrological events. Runoff variability was characterized using the coefficient of variation (i.e. the standard deviation divided by the mean) derived from monthly runoff, the mean annual cycle of runoff, and monthly runoff anomalies. Model uncertainty is assessed using a multi model ensemble of eight large-scale hydrological models the majority being forced with three different global circulation models. Changes in runoff variability are assessed by comparing the 30 year control period (1971 - 2000) to the 2071 – 2100 time interval. The A2 emission scenario triggers significant changes in the future runoff variability, which is predicted to decrease at northern latitudes, and increase at mid latitudes (northern and southern hemisphere). The decreasing runoff variability in the northernmost regions is likely to be related to the diminishing importance of snow on runoff regimes in a warming climate. The increasing runoff variability at the mid latitudes suggest that increasing evaporation rates in a warming climate can be related to an increase in runoff variability. http://www.eu-watch.org/technicalreports/10736173/WATCH-Technical-Report-Number-49-Projected-changes-in-future-runoff-variability-a-multi-model-analysis-using-the-A2-emission-scenario"> Wed, 03 Aug 2011 16:01:03 GMT EU WATCH Different drought indicators were tested for the identification of droughts on a global scale. The effect of the hydroclimate and physical catchment structure (soil moisture storage capacity, groundwater responsiveness) on the performance of an indicator (i.e. in terms of severity, frequency and duration of droughts) was investigated. Meteorological drought indicators were calculated using the WATCH Forcing data (WFD). Hydrological drought indicators (e.g. soil moisture, groundwater, streamflow) were derived from time series of hydrological variables that were simulated with a synthetic hydrological model that was driven by WFD. The Moving Average Precipitation with Variable Threshold (MAPVT) and Discharge with Variable Threshold (QVT) seem to be the most promising indicators for drought analysis on a global scale. Both indicators have a very constant performance for different hydroclimates and physical catchment structures and are rather straight forward to calculate. http://www.eu-watch.org/technicalreports/10646416/WATCH-Technical-Report-Number-24-Indicators-For-Drought-Characterization-on-a-Global-Scale"> Fri, 15 Oct 2010 10:37:49 GMT EU WATCH Water demand for industrial uses and for energy production is rapidly increasing and taking a larger and larger share of global water use of freshwater resources. Water availability and water demands are already heavily outbalanced as a result of natural and socio-economic variability. In this report, a global database on manufacturing and energy water uses taking into account changes in economic growth, thermal electricity production, and water-saving technologies for the 20th century is described. It should be used to provide an indicative picture of water use on a global scale in the manufacturing and energy sectors over recent decades. http://www.eu-watch.org/technicalreports/10385350/WATCH-Technical-Report-Number-23-Spatially-explicit-estimates-of-past-and-present-manufacturing-and-energy-water-use"> Tue, 06 Apr 2010 12:36:50 GMT EU WATCH New global sub-daily meteorological forcing data are provided for use with landsurface-and hydrological-models. The data are derived from the ERA-40 reanalysis product via sequential interpolation to half-degree resolution, elevation correction and monthly-scale adjustments based on CRU (corrected-temperature, diurnal temperature range, cloud-cover) and GPCC (precipitation) monthly observations combined with new corrections for varying atmospheric aerosol-loading and separate precipitation gauge corrections for rainfall and snowfall. http://www.eu-watch.org/technicalreports/10376311/WATCH-Technical-Report-Number-22-The-WATCH-forcing-data-1958-2001-a-meteorological-forcing-dataset-for-land-surface-and-hydrological-models"> Fri, 26 Feb 2010 12:02:28 GMT EU WATCH This report has presented a range of methodologies to analyse large-scale floods at local, regional and continental scales and to understand the antecedent conditions (in particular in terms of rainfall and atmospheric circulation) preceding large-scale floods. The report has also presented new methodology to incorporate non-stationarity in flood frequency analysis, important in a context of climate change. Finally, two techniques to derive catalogues of historical floods for Europe were presented. http://www.eu-watch.org/technicalreports/10367746/WATCH-Technical-Report-Number-21-Methodology-for-analysing-the-space-time-development-of-large-scale-floods-at-the-river-basin-regional-and-continental-scales"> Thu, 21 Jan 2010 16:56:27 GMT EU WATCH A River Basin Hydrological Model (RBHM) using HBV has been developed for the Nedožery catchment, Upper Nitra (Slovakia), which is a a focal area in the WATCH Test Basin Upper-Nitra (Slovakia). The hydrological regime of the Nedožery catchment is affected by snow, in particular in the headwaters. It is a fast-responding catchment (crystalline rocks). The model has been tested against time series of observed river flow, groundwater levels and snow. Trend analysis on the model input data showed downward trends in the observed discharge and upward trends in the observed precipitation and the annual number of snow days, which resulted in an over- (1974-1990) and underestimation (1991-2006) of the observed discharge. Time series of observations and outcome from the models were used to identify different drought types (meteorological drought, hydrological drought). Hydrological droughts (both winter and summer) in Nedožery catchment develop due to above average temperatures combined with below average precipitation. In winter this leads to a below average snow cover (resulting in lower spring discharges) and the occurrence of above average evapotranspiration. In winter, hydrological drought can also be caused by below average temperature, because water is stored on the surface as snow for a longer period. Such a winter drought does not continue into summer, because it ends by above average snowmelt in spring. HBV’s results were compared with outcome from the lumped, conceptual hydrological model BILAN and the distributed, physically-based hydrological model FRIER to test the impact of model structure on drought assessment. The BILAN model gives a lower number of droughts which are longer as compared with HBV. Recession curves simulated with BILAN are long and response on precipitation events during the recession is almost invisible. FRIER output shows more, but shorter droughts which indicates FRIER reacts faster to precipitation than HBV and BILAN. The RBHM and the outcome will be used in the WATCH project: (1) to develop a generic method for drought propagation, (2) to test the usefulness of large-scale forcing data (WATCH Forcing Dataset), and (3) to test the ability of large-scale land surface models (LSHMs) and global hydrological models (GHMs) to capture droughts. http://www.eu-watch.org/technicalreports/10363769/WATCH-Technical-Report-Number-20-Hydrological-drought-characteristics-of-the-Nedozery-sub-catchment-Upper-Nitra-Slovakia-based-on-HBV-modelling"> Mon, 28 Dec 2009 11:56:13 GMT EU WATCH River Basin Hydrological Models (RBHMs) using HBV have been developed for the Upper-Metuje and the Upper-Sázava catchments, which are focal areas in the WATCH Test Basin Upper-Elbe (Czech Republic). Both catchments have been selected for their contrasting hydrogeology, i.e. the Upper-Metuje catchment is a more slowly-responding catchment (sandstones), whereas the Upper-Sázava catchment is fast-responding catchment (crystalline rocks). The models have been tested against time series of observed river flow and groundwater levels. Time series of observations and outcome from the models have been used to identify different drought types (meteorological drought, hydrological drought). The RBHM for the Upper-Metuje catchment performs rather well. In the period 1982-2006 about 100 streamflow droughts were identified. This is slightly less than the number of droughts in the precipitation, but significantly more than the number of droughts in groundwater. The RBHM for the Upper-Sázava catchment performs less, because of monitoring of water abstractions and sewage water releases at a too low temporal resolution. The RBHMs and the outcome will be used in the WATCH project: (1) to develop a generic method for drought propagation, (2) to test the usefulness of large-scale forcing data (WATCH Forcing Dataset), and (3) to test the ability of large-scale land surface models (LSHMs) and global hydrological models (GHMs) to capture droughts. http://www.eu-watch.org/technicalreports/10336138/WATCH-Technical-Report-Number-19-Drought-analysis-for-the-Upper-Metuje-and-Upper-Sazava-catchments-Czech-Republic-using-the-hydrological-model-HBV"> Wed, 16 Sep 2009 22:08:13 GMT EU WATCH In this study preliminary estimates of recent trends in water quality in Europe especially in the Danube river basin are presented, including parameters like BOD, TC, TDS and water temperature. The specific aim of this paper was to provide background information on the new WorldQual model to be capable of operating on global scale. It provides insight in getting national loadings for the above mentioned indicators covering both, point and diffuse sources. These data sets have been put together to drive a grid based water quality model with a view to estimate the impacts on water quality of socio-economic and policy driven changes. In general modelling results show a promising step forward in building the first model of surface water quality to be capable in operating on the global scale. The data set presented in this study and the resulting outputs from the WorldQual model will form a baseline against which the impact of future scenarios can then be measured. http://www.eu-watch.org/technicalreports/10650328/WATCH-Technical-Report-Number-18-Preliminary-water-quality-module-state-of-development-and-plan-for-linkage-to-the-overall-modelling-framework"> Wed, 11 Mar 2009 14:28:40 GMT EU WATCH In this study preliminary estimates of past and present domestic water use are presented. The specific aim of this paper is to provide background information on the new global database of spatially explicit numbers of domestic water use. It provides an indicative picture of water use in the domestic sector across all continents. http://www.eu-watch.org/technicalreports/10096065/WATCH-Technical-Report-Number-17-Preliminary-spatially-explicit-estimates-of-past-and-present-domestic-water-use"> Wed, 18 Feb 2009 09:18:36 GMT EU WATCH This technical report lays out the fundamental processes that affect the river flows in the Northern Latitudes and how they are represented in both hydrological and meteorological models. The question that it aims to answer is: to what processes are the river in the northern latitudes sensitive and how can we represent these processes in our large scale models? http://www.eu-watch.org/technicalreports/10095182/WATCH-Technical-Report-Number-16-Process-that-impact-runoff-generation-in-Northern-Latitudes"> Fri, 13 Feb 2009 15:14:17 GMT EU WATCH The overall objective of this report is to define the analysis needed to quantify the atmospheric corrections required for offline hydrological modelling. The theory of atmospheric feedback is summarised, including a review of previous studies. It is clear that there are two feedbacks that are key to water resources: feedback on the precipitation and on the evaporative demand. The precipitation feedback will often require a large scale three-dimensional model to study it. Previous model runs can be used to define where and how nudges to the precipitation fields will be needed. A one-dimensional model can be used if the precipitation is convective. The evaporative demand feedback may be quantified using a one-dimensional analytical model of the atmosphere. It is proposed that such a model will be built for use with the water resource models. http://www.eu-watch.org/technicalreports/10095178/WATCH-Technical-Report-Number-15-Methodology-for-atmospheric-analysis-and-feedback-correction"> Fri, 13 Feb 2009 15:03:43 GMT EU WATCH Technical Report No. 13 of the WATCH Project reviews and compares methods for detection of change in extremes derived from gridded data. Univariate and multivariate approaches are considered. Methodological aspects of trend detection of gridded hydrological or climatical data are examined. Among issues tackled are significance estimation, trend index, resampling, and cluster-based analysis. http://www.eu-watch.org/technicalreports/10092516/WATCH-Technical-Report-Number-13-Intercomparison-of-methods-for-trend-detection-in-hydrological-extremes-derived-from-gridded-data"> Mon, 02 Feb 2009 15:05:52 GMT EU WATCH Indices are provided that characterizes hydrological extremes (drought and floods). Clearly, no single drought or flood characteristic is suitable to assess and describe hydrological extremes for any type of analyses in any region. At site indices (e.g. gauging stations, observation wells) and areal indices are described both for drought and floods. The current document is an open document that will be completed over the lifetime of the WATCH project, including all recent experiences. http://www.eu-watch.org/technicalreports/10047744/WATCH-Technical-Report-Number-11-Indices-for-different-types-of-droughts-and-floods-at-different-scales"> Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:32:49 GMT EU WATCH The theoretical basis for the land surface temperature (LST) and land surface emissivity (LSE) retrieval from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) is given, using split-window techniques. The algorithms proposed use calibrated reflectances and brightness temperatures from the AVHRR channels 1, 2, 4, 5 as well as NDVI images to produce a global LST. The algorithms can be used globally as they have been simulated from a worldwide emissivity and brightness temperature data base. The cloud tests applied to the LST data are also provided. This document describes the mathematical basis for the algorithms, the ancillary data-sets required and the validation strategy. http://www.eu-watch.org/technicalreports/10039676/WATCH-Technical-Report-Number-9-Estimation-of-Land-Surface-Temperature-using-AVHRR-sensors-on-the-NOAA-satellite"> Wed, 10 Dec 2008 10:43:38 GMT EU WATCH Objectives, procedure of the selection of candidates and the programme of the International Summer School on Hydrological Drought and Global Change (Trieste, Italy, 22-27 June 2008) are summarized. The report has a comprehensive set of annexes (e.g. flyer, application form, list of lecturers, list of participants, detailed programme of summer school and handouts for parallel workshops, title of contributions from participants, questionnaire, certificate) which might be useful for following courses. The evaluation of the summer school, which is based upon an extended questionnaire (86% response), covers the major part of the report. The vast majority of the participants was very happy with the summer school. About 90% of the students classified it as good to excellent. http://www.eu-watch.org/technicalreports/10028916/WATCH-Technical-Report-Number-8-International-Summer-School-on-Hydrological-Drought-and-Global-Change"> Tue, 28 Oct 2008 10:16:31 GMT EU WATCH DMI has studied a methodology for assessing the skill of an RCM in describing the full distribution of intensities of a variable such as precipitation, and the projected change in the distributions for the A2 climate scenario. The method used is based on that presented by Perkins et al. (2007), and calculates the overlap of two normalized precipitation intensity spectra. The skill of the PRUDENCE RCMs in comparison to the ECA observational data set (Klein Tank et al., 2002) was calculated and it was shown that all of the models matched the observations by about 80—90%. Some models always perform in the higher range and some always in the lower. http://www.eu-watch.org/technicalreports/10648756/WATCH-Technical-Report-Number-7-Analysis-of-existing-climate-model-results-over-Europe"> Thu, 11 Sep 2008 09:50:26 GMT EU WATCH This report presents the methodologies to correct biases in climate model output, and to quantify and handle resulting uncertainties in estimates of future components of the global water cycle. http://www.eu-watch.org/technicalreports/10019469/WATCH-Technical-Report-Number-6-Practical-methodologies-to-correct-biases-in-climate-model-output-and-to-quantify-and-handle-resulting-uncertainties-in-estimates-of-future-components-of-the-global-water-cycle"> Wed, 10 Sep 2008 10:54:11 GMT EU WATCH This deliverable reports on discussions and progress made to define scenarios for the 21st century that reflect regional and global changes in socio-economic conditions, which shall be used to prescribe temporal, and spatially distributed, boundary conditions for the later global and regional hydrological sensitivity simulations. http://www.eu-watch.org/technicalreports/10019180/WATCH-Technical-Report-Number-5-Definition-of-socioeconomic-scenarios-for-land-surface-hydrology-simulations-of-the-21st-century"> Wed, 20 Aug 2008 15:50:04 GMT EU WATCH Information is provided on available data for selected river basins in Europe (i.e. Glomma, Norway; Nitra, Slovakia; Upper-Elbe, Czech Republic; Upper-Guadiana, Spain; Thames, United Kingdom). The river basins differ in climate and physical basin structure. Information is given for the whole basin and for one or two sub-basins (focal areas). The river basins play a key role in the validation of large-scale models. Observed hydro-meteorological variables in the selected river basins, which are complemented with simulation results from detailed River Basin Hydrological Models, will be used to evaluate the ability of large-scale models to satisfactory represent hydrological processes that control the propagation of drought (from meteorological droughts to hydrological droughts) and the generation of large-scale floods. http://www.eu-watch.org/technicalreports/10019655/WATCH-Technical-Report-Number-4-Database-with-hydrometeorological-variables-for-selected-river-basins-metadata-catalogue"> Tue, 19 Aug 2008 13:17:34 GMT EU WATCH There is an ongoing debate about the potential effects that increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration already had on the global water cycle and on river discharge in particular. To contribute to this debate, one applied the global vegetation and hydrology model LPJmL for quantifying the individual contribution of risen CO2 concentration relative to the contributions of changing precipitation, temperature, land use and irrigation to worldwide trends in river discharge (Q) over the past century. The results have been put together in a concise scientific paper, but a a brief summary of the study is provided in this report. http://www.eu-watch.org/technicalreports/10307406/WATCH-Technical-Report-Number-3-Uncertainty-in-water-budgets-of-the-20th-century-due-to-representation-of-impact-of-CO2-enrichment"> Mon, 18 Aug 2008 16:47:37 GMT EU WATCH This report presents the first of two re-analysis data sets for the WATCH project using a poor man’s re-analysis on a 0.12 degree grid on a limited domain covering western Europe. http://www.eu-watch.org/technicalreports/10018389/WATCH-Technical-Report-Number-2-Poor-man-s-re-analysis-over-Europe"> Thu, 07 Aug 2008 09:55:34 GMT EU WATCH This report presents the first results of an intercomparison of approaches to estimate water resources and their stresses across the global domain, focusing on the hydrological component of global-scale water resources assessments. http://www.eu-watch.org/technicalreports/10010066/WATCH-Technical-Report-Number-1-First-results-from-intercomparison-of-surface-water-availability-modules"> Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT EU WATCH