Main problems addressed by the best practice
This Integrated Project Water and Global Change (WATCH) will bring together the hydrological, water resources and climate communities, to analyse, quantify and predict the components of the current and future global water cycles and related water resources states, evaluate their uncertainties and clarify the overall vulnerability of global water resources related to the main societal and economic sectors.|
Specify the objectives of the best practice
1. Analyse and describe the current global water cycle, especially causal chains leading to observable changes in extremes (droughts and floods)
|2. Evaluate how the global water cycle and its extremes respond to future drivers of global change (including greenhouse gas release and land cover change)
|3. Evaluate feedbacks in the coupled system as they affect the global water cycle
|4. Evaluate the uncertainties in the predictions of coupled climate-hydrological- land-use models using a combination of model ensembles and observations
|5. Develop an enhanced (modelling) 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, such as agriculture, nature and utilities (energy, industry and drinking water sector)
|6. 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
|7. Collaborate intensively with the key leading research groups on water cycle and water resources in USA and Japan
|8. Collaborate intensively in dissemination of its scientific results with major research programmes worldwide (WCRP -World Climate Research Programme-, IGBP -International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme)
|9. Collaborate intensively in dissemination of its practical and applied results with major water resources and water management platforms and professional organisations worldwide (WWC -World Water Council, IWA - International Water Association) and at a scale of 5 selected river basins in Europe.
