WATCH – Water and Global Change
Good Practices Category
Good Practices Summary
Analyse and describe the current global water cycle.
Evaluate how the global water cycle and its extremes respond to future drivers of global change.
Evaluate feedbacks in the coupled system as they affect the global water cycle.
Evaluate the uncertainties in coupled climate-hydrological- land-use model predictions using a combination of model ensembles and observations.
Develop an enhanced framework to assess the future vulnerability of water as a resource, and in relation to water/climate related vulnerabilities and risks of the major water related sectors.
Provide comprehensive quantitative and qualitative assessments and predictions of the vulnerability of the water resources and water-/climate-related vulnerabilities and risks for the 21st century.
Collaborate with the key leading research groups on water cycle and water resources.
Collaborate in dissemination of its scientific results.
Mitigation
For the first time it brought together the hydrological, water resources and climate research communities at an international level.
Replicability/Knowledge Transfer
The scientific developments have been published in reviewed scientific papers (over 200). The centrepiece of these has been the WATCH special collection published in the Journal of Hydrometeorology. In addition, the detail of WATCH research is available in the WATCH Technical reports- this series now numbers over 50 and are available through the WATCH web site. WATCH has also had a strong presence at a number of international conferences. There have also been post graduate courses, summer schools, workshops and symposiums.
Resources
A central focus of the project has been the development of a common modelling framework to allow the linkage of a large variety of spatial data sets with hydrological and water resource models. This has provided a comprehensive and consistent assessment of the water cycle (means and extremes), water resources and uncertainty.
Key to the modelling framework has been the development of a consistent set of climate data for use as input. Using these data, WATCH completed an ambitious Water Model Inter-comparison Project. This led to the development of data and tools to provide a reliable multi-model approach to assessing impacts on the water cycle.
Target Audience
Policy Implications
WATCH provide policy makers with a consistent and clear assessment of flows, floods and droughts for present and future scenarios.
Social Dimension
WATCH has created an international group of knowledgeable and experienced modellers working at the interface between hydrology and climate science. These scientists will go on to influence international research projects for years to come, underpinning the development of evidence based inter-governmental policy-making.
Innovation Type
Awareness, Methodology, Platform, Process, Social, ToolkitInnovation
The Project use a multi-model approach to model land surface and atmosphere feedbacks