A methodology for dealing with regional change in integrated water resources management

Abstract

The paper presents a methodology on how to consistently deal with the future change and management options in integrated water resources management (IWRM). It is based on a conceptual framework with a five step procedure for the formulation and analysis of a so-called 'parameterised regional futures'. Developing and testing the approach for IWRM is realised for the upper part of the Western Bug River catchment (Ukraine). Special attention is paid to scenarios of change covering climate and land use. The future regional climate is downscaled with the model CCLM. Land cover is projected after retrospective change detection and the derivation of prospective algorithms. Parameters of the interrelations between land use and the water cycle are tackled through using the concept of the model PWF-LU. The methodology is currently being tested to analyse the impacts of mid-term regional change and management options on the water cycle of the catchment.

Dynamic Land Use Change as Challenge for IWRM: A Case Study in Central Brazil

“…To analyze these impacts, the concept of Urban Structure Types (UST) was applied. The UST concept offers the possibility to describe the urban system in terms of heterogeneous areas of open and green spaces, infrastructure, type of building complexes, and the proportion of impervious surface (for studies using the concept of UST in different disciplines see Wickop et al 1998;Ellis and Revitt 2008;Strauch et al 2008;Wurm et al 2010;Krellenberg et al 2011;Taubenböck et al 2011;Schanze et al 2012). The UST concept was used within the IWRM to monitor and characterize the urban area and to link the obtained data with water-relevant information.…”

Integrated Water Resources Management under different hydrological, climatic and socio-economic conditions

“…The idea of developing a ToolBox was to provide interfaces for combining existing simulation tools to answer specific questions related to coupled hydrosystems (Kolditz et al 2008;Kalbacher et al 2011a). Examples are (1) investigating the interaction of roots and soil to better understand the mechanisms of water uptake (Kalbacher et al 2011b), (2) studying the interaction between surface and subsurface water in the River Bug model area in particular to better understand the mechanisms of hydrograph separation and mass exchange between different hydro-compartments (Delfs et al 2009(Delfs et al , 2011, (3) setting up models of the wastewater systems based on little information ) and linking them with a river model, (4) climate projections ), (5) future scenarios development (Schanze et al 2011). The development of concepts and tools for data integration and visualization (Rink et al 2011) became an important prerequisite for hydrological process analysis.…”

How to assess hydromorphology? A comparison of Ukrainian and German approaches

“…The upper catchment is dominated by agricultural use (acre 48.2%, pasture 20.2%), among few forests (14.1% deciduous, 4.7% coniferous) or others (e.g. 11.2% sealed, 1.4% peat bogs) (Schanze et al 2011). Mean annual precipitation ranges between 700 and 800 mm year −1 with maxima usually occurring in summer (up to 128 mm) and minima in the winter season (20-30 mm) (Tacis 2001).…”

“…In conjoint studies aspects of water quality problems (Ertel et al 2011), data scarcity in the modelling of climate projections , sewer systems (Blumensaat et al 2011) and soil distributions (Tavares et al 2011) are analysed. Moreover, comprehensive work is related to the methodology for dealing with regional changes (Schanze et al 2011) or capacity development within the model region (Leidel et al 2011).…”