What’s obstructing climate change adaptation in environmental water management?

Climate change is irreversibly changing the water cycle, yet existing environmental flow assessment methods often fail to recognise the non stationarity of hydro climatic systems. Failure to do so will lead to the inability of environmental water management to achieve its restoration targets. Australia has undergone major reform over the past twelve years to recover water from consumptive use for environmental benefit. This paper examines how government agencies responsible for the planning and delivery of that environmental water establish ecological objectives, whether climate change adaptations are considered important, and if not whether there is a clear rationale or barrier to adaptation. We used semi structured interviews and an online survey of staff involved in environmental water management throughout Australia, with a focus on south east Australia, to gather information on methods and perceptions regarding these key issues. The results show water management staff are aware of the general impacts climate change will have on local areas they are responsible for. However, they do not have the necessary, detailed information about how ecosystems are likely to respond to climate change to plan with confidence. There is also a lack of legislative and policy guidance as to how to deal with the potential inability to meet existing environmental targets. We conclude that environmental water planning needs to more formally incorporate climate change considerations along with modelling approaches that can evaluate outcomes under a range of possible future hydro climatic scenarios. As the industry currently exists in Australia, it is ill prepared for the challenge of meeting legislated ecological targets under future climates.

Download Full-text

Irrigator and Environmental Water Management Adaptation to Climate Change and Water Reallocation in the Murray–Darling Basin

Water Economics and Policy ◽

10.1142/s2382624x15500095 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 01 (03) ◽

pp. 1550009 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Mac Kirby ◽

Jeff Connor ◽

Mobin-ud Din Ahmad ◽

Lei Gao ◽

Mohammed Mainuddin

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Water Management ◽

Management Strategies ◽

Environmental Water ◽

Adaptation Strategy ◽

Net Income ◽

Adaptation To Climate Change ◽

Murray Darling Basin ◽

Gross Income ◽

The Impact

In an earlier paper (Kirby et al. 2014a), we showed that climate change and a new policy which reallocates water to the environment will impact both the flow of water and the income derived from irrigation in the Murray–Darling Basin. Here, we extend the analysis to consider irrigator and environmental water management strategies to adapt to these new circumstances. Using an integrated hydrology-economics model, we examine a range of strategies and their impact on flows and the gross income of irrigation. We show that the adaptation strategies provide a range of flow and economic outcomes in the Basin. Several strategies offer significant scope to enhance flows without large adverse impacts on the gross income of irrigation overall. Some environmental water management strategies enhance flows in the Murray part of the basin even under the drying influence of a projected median climate change. Irrigator strategies that include carryover of water in storage from one year to the next provide for lesser year to year variability in gross income and may be regarded as more advantageous in providing security against droughts. Flows and the gross income of low value irrigation industries strategies are sensitive to climate change, irrespective of adaptation strategy. Should a projected dry extreme climate change be realized, no strategy can prevent a large reduction in flows and also in gross income, particularly of low value irrigation industries. Nevertheless, environmental water management strategies mitigate the impact on flows, and in some cases may also help mitigate the impacts on gross income. High value irrigation industries are less affected (in terms of gross income, though net income will reduce because of rising water prices) by projected climate change, consistent with observation in the recent long term drought.

Download Full-text

Water management and climate change monitoring in Tunisia and Egypt using remote sensing techniques

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-3100 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Simonetta Paloscia ◽

Giacomo Fontanelli ◽

Simone Pettinato ◽

Emanuele Santi ◽

Giuliano Ramat ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Water Management ◽

Remote Sensing ◽

Water Resources ◽

Water Cycle ◽

Climate Change Scenarios ◽

Agricultural Practice ◽

Water Efficiency ◽

Environmental Models ◽

Remote Sensing Techniques

This project deals with the implementation of an innovative water management system in Mediterranean countries (i.e. Tunisia and Egypt), which suffer from chronic water scarcity, together with two European countries (Germany and Italy). The consortium is developing and applying synergic methods and algorithms for investigating the water cycle, using remote sensing techniques.The focus is on the use of satellite data (both optical and microwave) for monitoring vegetation cover and water status along with soil moisture temporal evolutions in order to improve the knowledge of the water cycle in arid areas. Both local and regional monitoring are carried out in order to investigate different spatial scales.Environmental models and algorithms for the retrieval of hydrological parameters have been developed in the frame of this project in order to match the main goal of the project, i.e. to propose practical and cost-effective solutions for driving and updating a method for the sustainable use of water in agriculture.&#160;An optimized management of water resources for cultivated lands on Egyptian Delta (Northern part) and Tunisian territory will be realized by analyzing the available spatial and temporal data for the areas of interest appropriately selected for this purpose. As such, an efficient water use, equitable distribution of water resources, community participation in decisions, and sustainable system operation over time can be supported.First of all, we aim to localize different crop and irrigation techniques for the study regions. This information is required as a basis for further investigations and assessments. Secondly, the water efficiency for different lands, crop types and irrigation systems will be assessed.Afterwards, possible improvements in agricultural practice with respect to climate change scenarios and information on water efficiency will be determined by rating the outcome from the assessment.

Download Full-text

Reinforcement Learning for a system-of-systems approach in water management

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-7484 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Lan Hoang

Keyword(s):

Neural Network ◽

Climate Change ◽

Water Management ◽

Machine Learning ◽

Reinforcement Learning ◽

Water Cycle ◽

Real Life ◽

Physical Modelling ◽

System Of Systems ◽

Unintended Consequences

The water cycle connects many essential parts of the environment and is a key process supporting life on Earth. Amid climate change impacts and competing water consumptions from a growing population, there is a need for better management of this scarce resource. Yet, water management is complex. As a resource, water exists under various forms, from water droplets in the atmosphere to embodied water in consumer products. Its flows and existence transcend national and geographic borders; its management, however, are limited by boundaries. To date, machine learning has shown potentials in applications across domains, from showing skills in game plays to improving efficiencies and operation of real-life processes. The system-of-systems perspective has emerged in many fields as an attempt to capture the complexity arising from individual components. Within a system, the interactions and interdependencies across components can produce unintended consequences. Moreover, their effects that are not explainable just from studying a component on its own. Its concept intertwines with Complexity Science, and points to Wicked Problems, solutions of which are difficult to find and achieve. Climate change itself has been recognised as a &#8216;Super Wicked&#8217; problem, for which deadlines are approaching but for which there are no clear solutions. Yet, there is often a lack of understanding of the interactions and dependencies, even from a physical modelling perspective. A comprehensive approach to capturing these interactions is through physical modelling of water processes, such as hydraulics and hydrological modelling. The structure and data pipelines of such an approach, nevertheless, is static and does not evolve unless reconfigured by model experts.&#160;We propose that a form of machine learning, Deep Reinforcement Learning, can be used to better capture the complex whole system interactions of components in the water cycle and assist in their management. This approach capitalises the rapid advances of Machine Learning in environmental applications and differ to traditional optimisation techniques in that it provides distributed learning, consistent models for components that can evolve to connect and continuously adapt to the operating environment. This is key in capturing the changes brought about by climate change and the subsequent environmental and human change in response.1. Reinforcement Learning for improving process modelling to produce a spectrum of fully physical models for hybrid physical-neural networks to full Deep Learning models that can mimic the natural processes of interest, such as streamflows or rainfall-runoff. An example case study could be a hydrological model of a river catchment and its upstream-downstream dam operation. The components in this case can be individual reservoir models, neural network-based emulators, or differential equation models.2. Reinforcement Learning for holistic modelling of physical processes in water managemen to capture the whole system. Since each component is modelled as a full or hybrid physical-neural network model, the components could be integrated to provide a whole system approach. Within this, Reinforcement Learning can act as the constructor or go beyond this to provide solutions for targeted problems. &#160;

Download Full-text

A historical, scaled approach to climate change adaptation: the case of Vietnam

Journal of Political Ecology ◽

10.2458/v27i1.22049 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 27 (1) ◽

pp. 105-124

Author(s):

Lili Salloum Lindegaard

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Water Management ◽

Political Ecology ◽

Climate Change Adaptation ◽

Structured Interviews ◽

Historical View ◽

Historical Factors ◽

Historical Dynamics ◽

Current Water

This article sheds light on how scaled, historical dynamics inform the framing of climate change adaptation programs. It looks particularly at the influence of domestic versus global rationalities in adaptation programs through a novel joint governance and political ecology framework. It does this in the setting of water management in Vietnam. Based on a historical view, semi-structured interviews and document and policy reviews, I examine historical water management in Vietnam and current water management programs identified as climate change adaptation. By analyzing how historical, scaled political rationalities inform the framing of current adaptation programs, I find that program formulation reflects domestic(ated) rationalities rather than novel global adaptation agendas. This suggests that universalizing accounts of climate change adaptation overlook the significance of situated, historical factors in the formulation of adaptation programs. Furthermore, the article illustrates how political rationalities can be rescaled, gaining traction within new institutional scales and the programs enacted from them. Finally, the article underlines the inherent power implications of the struggle to determine whose rationalities prevail in program formulation.Keywords: Climate change adaptation, water management, scale, rescaling, political rationalities, Vietnam

Download Full-text

Total Water Management: Managing the Water Cycle for Climate Change Solutions

Water Environment Research ◽

10.1002/j.1554-7531.2008.tb00341.x ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 80 (4) ◽

pp. 291-291

Author(s):

Kathy Freas ◽

Armin Munévar

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Water Management ◽

Water Cycle ◽

Total Water

Download Full-text

Climate Variability and Climate Change Impacts on Land Surface, Hydrological Processes and Water Management

Water ◽

10.3390/w11071492 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 11 (7) ◽

pp. 1492 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Yongqiang Zhang ◽

Hongxia Li ◽

Paolo Reggiani

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Water Management ◽

Land Surface ◽

Water Cycle ◽

Management Strategies ◽

Climate Extremes ◽

Climate Change Impacts ◽

Hydrological Processes ◽

Causality Analysis ◽

Special Issue

During the last several decades, Earth´s climate has undergone significant changes due to anthropogenic global warming, and feedbacks to the water cycle. Therefore, persistent efforts are required to understand the hydrological processes and to engage in efficient water management strategies under changing environmental conditions. The twenty-four contributions in this Special Issue have broadly addressed the issues across four major research areas: (1) Climate and land-use change impacts on hydrological processes, (2) hydrological trends and causality analysis faced in hydrology, (3) hydrological model simulations and predictions, and (4) reviews on water prices and climate extremes. The substantial number of international contributions to the Special Issue indicates that climate change impacts on water resources analysis attracts global attention. Here, we give an introductory summary of the research questions addressed by the papers and point the attention of readers toward how the presented studies help gaining scientific knowledge and support policy makers.

Download Full-text

Water Security or Water Resilience? Climate Resilient Water Management in Wellington New Zealand

10.26686/wgtn.16992955.v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

◽

Nigel Taptiklis

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Water Management ◽

New Zealand ◽

General Circulation ◽

Climate Model ◽

Resource Constraints ◽

Local Context ◽

Urban Water ◽

Structured Interviews ◽

Yield Model

A confluence of factors including population growth, climate change, resource constraints and legacy effects poses significant challenges to the sustainability of cities worldwide. With the deep complexity inherent in socio-ecological systems, 'solutions' sometimes shift the problem in space or time or drive the system in the opposite direction than intended. A case study into climate change adaptation and community resilience in the context of urban water management was undertaken in Wellington, New Zealand, using a 'post normal' science approach. Climate change and water demand scenarios for 2040 and 2090 were analysed using Greater Wellington Water’s 'sustainable yield' model and downscaled general circulation climate model data. Semi-structured interviews and a systems modelling workshop were conducted in order to gain an understanding of the local context for adaptation, resilience and response option selection. With a 20% reduction of aggregate per capita demand and greater storage capacity, Wellington has sufficient water from current sources to smooth increased flow variability due to climate change and to meet increased demand from the projected increase in population. Adaptation pathways and the potential for 'maladaptation' is explored and an integrated framework for optimising urban water resilience developed.

Download Full-text