WaterWorld: a self-parameterising, physically based model for application in data-poor but problem-rich environments globally

Abstract

This paper describes a spatiaiiy expiicit, physicaiiy based giobal modei for water baiance. Its i<ey innovations include the fact that it comes with aii data required for application, is very high spatiai resolution (1 km or 1-hectare resolution) and yet global in extent and is particularly well suited to heterogeneous environments with little or no available data. The model, Waterworld, is capable of producing a hydrological baseline representing the mean water balance for 1950-2000 and allows users to apply ensemble scenarios for climate change or examine the impact of policy options for land cover change or land management interventions. Waterworld is focused on policy support, especially in consen/ation hydrology and development applications and is delivered through a simple web interface, requiring little local capacity for use. The paper discusses the paucity of hydrological data and the urgency of hydrological problems in much of the less-developed world, which reinforce the need for tools like Waterworld. We discuss the types of hydrological problems that models might contribute to managing and the requirements of models applied to such problems. By way of example, applications of Waterworld to understanding large-scale patterns of water resources and uncertainty around adaptation to climate change are described.

Big Data and Multiple Methods for Mapping Small Reservoirs: Comparing Accuracies for Applications in Agricultural Landscapes

“…Reservoirs are smaller in dry months as water levels recede, which partly explain the high proportion of small reservoirs in the validation dataset. Because drying patterns can also depend on reservoir depth and catchment size, we calculated the catchment area for each reservoir and confirmed that the distribution of our validation dataset was representative of the distribution of basin-wide reservoir catchment sizes using the WaterWorld [52] zones of interest tool.…”

What benefits do community forests provide, and to whom? A rapid assessment of ecosystem services from a Himalayan forest, Nepal

“…For carbon in above-ground biomass, we identified the total area of different vegetation types in both the current and alternative state through consultation with local experts (DFO Harmon et al, (1986). The overall economic value of these carbon stocks and how it differed between states was estimated using a range of carbon values (see SI (Mulligan & Burke, 2005;Mulligan et al, 2010;Bruijnzeel et al, 2011;Mulligan, 2012 forest cover for the alternative state based on the stakeholder consultation as described above. In the absence of a spatial representation of this alternative land cover, these changes were applied uniformly across the site.…”

Exploring Rooftop Rainwater Harvesting Potential for Food Production in Urban Areas

“…WorldClim has been extensively used for several studies such as the analysis of the impact of climate change on agriculture and adaptation strategies by using crop-climate simulation models [43,52], as well as spatially explicit and physically based global models for water balance [53].…”