Is climate change a threat for water uses in the Mediterranean region? Results from a survey at local scale

Jeunesse, Isabelle La; Cirelli, Claudia; Aubin, David; Larrue, Corinne; Sellami, Haykel; Afifi, Samir; Bellin, Alberto; Benabdallah, Sihem; Bird, Dn; Deidda, Roberto; Dettori, Maria Luisa; Engin, Güleda Önkal; Herrmann, Frank; Ludwig, Ralf; Mabrouk, Badr; Majone, Bruno; Paniconi, Claudio; Soddu, Antonino

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2015.04.062

Cited by 60 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Accounting for future variations in water demand due to climate changes is needed to avoid risks of supply and operational failures in water systems. This need is particularly remarkable for Italy, that, as the most Mediterranean countries, is already coping with water shortages (La Jeunesse et al 2016).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing the Impact of Climate Change on Future Water Demand using Weather Data

Fiorillo

Kapelan

Xenochristou

et al. 2021

Water Resour Manage

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Assessing the impact of climate change on water demand is a challenging task. This paper proposes a novel methodology that quantifies this impact by establishing a link between water demand and weather based on climate change scenarios, via Coupled General Circulation Models. These models simulate the response of the global climate system to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations by reproducing atmospheric and ocean processes. In order to establish the link between water demand and weather, Random Forest models based on weather variables were used. This methodology was applied to a district metered area in Naples (Italy). Results demonstrate that the total district water demand may increase by 9–10% during the weeks with the highest temperatures. Furthermore, results show that the increase in water demand changes depending on the social characteristics of the users. The water demand of employed users with high education may increase by 13–15% when the highest temperatures occur. These increases can seriously affect the capacity and operation of existing water systems.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing the Impact of Climate Change on Future Water Demand using Weather Data

Fiorillo

Kapelan

Xenochristou

et al. 2021

Water Resour Manage

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“…In the Eifel-Rur region, for instance, the overall public perception is that the reservoirs provide other more visible services than drinking water, such as flood protection or opportunities for sailing and tourism attraction. This lack of awareness is a drawback when trying to communicate drought risks to the broader public (La Jeunesse et al 2015).…”

Section: Awareness and The Public And Political Agendamentioning

confidence: 99%

Cross-cutting Perspective Freshwater

Furusho¹,

Vidaurre

Jeunesse

et al. 2016

Governance for Drought Resilience

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One singularity of northwestern Europe (NWE) is that severe droughts are rare events in the region and water scarcity has hardly been experienced in its history. The DROP pilot sites are not exceptions to this context. Although the lack of a drought history in wet areas can explain why drought and water scarcity are not necessarily the focus of (if ever considered in) river basin management plans, it must be noted that freshwater availability for drinking water provision remains a priority stake in both quantitative and qualitative aspects. Providing a reliable and safe supply of drinking water may thus be a leading entryway to the development of drought risk awareness and drought adaptation measures in a river basin. When such essential resource is threatened and the competition for water among users increases, there is a good chance that reflections and changes will be triggered. Water use conflicts and drinking water supply threats may arise due to increased water demand, but also due to decreased water availability. The later may occur because of natural climate variability, i.e., drier years than average, or as the result of the impact of climate change on local water resources. Climate change awareness is then an important asset to manage water availability. Where climate change awareness is low and adaptation measures are basically inexistent, social and political responses to drought adaptation may be slow and inefficient. However, even in those cases where climate change awareness is still low in general society, water authorities and other stakeholders are conscious that water demand tends to intensify with population and economic growth, rendering water scarcity conceivable and even foreseeable. Freshwater availability for drinking water supply is therefore an issue that can motivate the introduction of drought and water scarcity risks into the political and public agenda , even in “ drought-scarce ” regions. This chapter highlights the links between drought governance and the vulnerability of freshwater for drinking water supply, with a focus on drought adaptation. The main issues presented here are illustrated with how freshwater issues are managed in the DROP project cases with a particular focus on the two “ freshwater reservoir ” pilot sites: the Arzal dam in Brittany France (see Chap. 6 ) and the Eifel-Rur in Germany (see Chap. 4 ). Those two cases deal with reservoir management not only for drinking water supply (Fig. 11.1 ) but also for other uses, with various priority sets

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“…Informed societal adjustment to potential climatic changes requires in depth understanding of Earth's atmospheric response to various natural and man‐made forcings, including greenhouse gas emission scenarios associated with different rates of economic and population growth [see e.g., IPCC, ; Vrac et al ., ; Fowler et al ., ; Wetterhall et al ., ; Johnson and Sharma , ; Raje and Mujumdar , ; Palatella et al ., ; Annan et al ., ; Hasson et al ., , among others]. For the latter purpose, one needs accurate estimates of hydrological variables at a regional level and fine temporal scales (e.g., daily), suitable to run hydrologic models, and conduct impact studies [see e.g., Wilby and Harris , ; Perkins et al ., ; Kjellström et al ., ; Wilby , ; Evans and McCabe , ; Stoll et al ., ; Teutschbein et al ., ; Sulis et al ., ; Deidda et al ., ; Langousis and Kaleris , ; Camici et al ., ; Piras et al ., ; La Jeunesse et al ., ; Dentoni et al ., ; Majone et al ., ; Maurer et al ., ; Herrmann et al ., ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

A parametric approach for simultaneous bias correction and high‐resolution downscaling of climate model rainfall

Mamalakis

Langousis

Deidda

et al. 2017

Water Resources Research

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Distribution mapping has been identified as the most efficient approach to bias‐correct climate model rainfall, while reproducing its statistics at spatial and temporal resolutions suitable to run hydrologic models. Yet its implementation based on empirical distributions derived from control samples (referred to as nonparametric distribution mapping) makes the method's performance sensitive to sample length variations, the presence of outliers, the spatial resolution of climate model results, and may lead to biases, especially in extreme rainfall estimation. To address these shortcomings, we propose a methodology for simultaneous bias correction and high‐resolution downscaling of climate model rainfall products that uses: (a) a two‐component theoretical distribution model (i.e., a generalized Pareto (GP) model for rainfall intensities above a specified threshold u*, and an exponential model for lower rainrates), and (b) proper interpolation of the corresponding distribution parameters on a user‐defined high‐resolution grid, using kriging for uncertain data. We assess the performance of the suggested parametric approach relative to the nonparametric one, using daily raingauge measurements from a dense network in the island of Sardinia (Italy), and rainfall data from four GCM/RCM model chains of the ENSEMBLES project. The obtained results shed light on the competitive advantages of the parametric approach, which is proved more accurate and considerably less sensitive to the characteristics of the calibration period, independent of the GCM/RCM combination used. This is especially the case for extreme rainfall estimation, where the GP assumption allows for more accurate and robust estimates, also beyond the range of the available data.

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Is climate change a threat for water uses in the Mediterranean region? Results from a survey at local scale

Cited by 60 publications

References 19 publications

Assessing the Impact of Climate Change on Future Water Demand using Weather Data

Assessing the Impact of Climate Change on Future Water Demand using Weather Data

Cross-cutting Perspective Freshwater

A parametric approach for simultaneous bias correction and high‐resolution downscaling of climate model rainfall

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