We present an assessment of climate change impact on the hydrology of the Lago di Como lake catchment of Italy. On one side, the lake provides water for irrigation of the Po valley during summer, and on the other side its regulation is crucial to prevent flood risk, especially in fall and winter. The dynamics of lake Como are linked to the complex cryospheric hydrology of its Alpine contributing catchment, which is in turn expected to change radically under prospective global warming. The Poli-Hydro model is used here to simulate the cryospheric processes affecting the hydrology of this high-altitude catchment. We demonstrated the model’s accuracy against historical hydrological observations, available during 2002–2018. We then used four Representative Concentration Pathways scenarios, provided by three Global Circulation Models under the AR6 of IPCC, to project potential climate change until 2100. We thereby derived daily series of rainfall and temperature, to be used as inputs for hydrological simulations. The climate projections here highlight a substantial increase in temperature at the end of the century, between +0.61° and +5.96°, which would lead to a decrease in the total ice volume in the catchment, by −50% to −77%. Moreover, there would be a decrease in the contribution of snow melt to the annual lake inflow, and an increase in ice melt under the worst-case scenarios. Overall, the annual Lake inflows would increase during autumn and winter and would decrease in summer. Our study may provide a tool to help policy makers to henceforth evaluate adaptation strategies in the area.

No abstract

No abstract

The traditional approach for the optimization of water distribution networks (WDNs) does not always lead to consistent solutions from an operational point of view. The latest optimization algorithms identify solutions that are “the best solutions” in mathematical terms but that can be less than robust against changes in operating conditions, resulting in the worst case in hydraulically infeasible configurations. Thus, this paper aims to provide a methodology that can synthesize the network performance capabilities under the change in operating conditions with two convergent strategies. The first consists of the implementation of new performance indices (PIs), the demand deficit and the pressure range, and the evaluation of their ability to criticality highlight in operating conditions. The second is the introduction of a new approach to weight the infeasible solutions in the final result, which are those inconsistent with the real hydraulic network performances. The analysis shows that the use of these new indices makes it easier to understand the behavior of the network and to identify any weaknesses. This is true if these indices consider the hydraulically inconsistent solutions that may arise from the simulations of different operation conditions; otherwise, results that poorly represent the real behavior of the network would be obtained.

<p>We present preliminary results in fulfilment of a <em>Gruppo CAP</em> funded project aiming to evaluate the contribution of the Ticino-Adda TA catchment surface runoff to aquifer recharge of the Lombardia region of Italy. The area of interest is nested within the Po river valley, largely snow/ice fed, and rich in both surface and underground waters, and management of groundwater resources requires thereby assessment of water exchanges between surface and subsurface bodies. Final purpose of this 3-year effort is the production of weather based (IPCC AR5/6) hydrological scenarios in the TA catchment, as boundary conditions for aquifer modeling during 21<sup>st</sup> century. Here, we report results from Project’s Phase 1, i.e. data based set up of a weather driven, semi distributed hydrological model <em>Poli-Hydro</em>, usable to mimic hydrology of high-altitude catchments watering the Po Valley. The adopted model simulates water budget, including dynamics of glaciers, snow melt, evapotranspiration, and subsequently provides routing time of overland and underground flow at any river section of the river network. In regulated catchments proper operation rules are developed to account for modified flows downstream. We demonstrate model accuracy against historical hydrological information. Modeled daily flows, underground flows, and the contribution of the irrigation systems within the TA can be used as inputs for aquifer dynamics models, to assess control of surface water budget upon aquifer dynamics. Projected hydrological scenarios will be also usable to mimic future hydrogeological dynamics of the area.</p>