Water Law and Planning Frameworks Under Climate Change Variability: Systemic and Adaptive Management of Flood Risk

Climate change is predicted to bring more extreme climatic variability to Australia. Yet recent reforms to Australian water law and governance have typically focused on water scarcity, not floods. In the summer of 2010/2011, devastating floods in a major urban centre and in regional areas were powerful reminders of the need for more systemic and adaptive responses for water resources management. Using Queensland and Victoria as case studies, the article demonstrates how the water law frameworks in both states assume ‘stationarity’ through the adoption of standards such as the 1:100 year flood event probability—an assumption that climate change has rendered unreliable. The article then examines the consequences of reliance on these past modes, particularly in respect of land use planning measures for flood risk adaptation. Finally, this article considers systemic responses for improved flood management focussing on strategic government planning, driven in part by potential litigation in the courts, as well as more local ‘autonomous’ adaptation in community-based initiatives.     

Water Structures and Climate Change Impact: a Review

Climate change impact started to play significant role since the last three decades almost in every aspects of life especially on meteorological and climatological events and their impacts on water resources, which are managed by engineering structures. Its effects on hydro-meteorological data are assessed by means of available methodologies, but the climate change impact of engineering water structures (dams, culverts, channels, wells, highways and their side drainages, levees, etc.) are not treated equally. This paper provides the review of the necessary adaptation, combat and mitigation activities against the climate change for protection, construction or augmentation of the engineering water structures design capacity. Additionally, land use practices and geomorphological changes also trigger the climate changes on the engineering water structures. The main aim of this paper is to present the impact of such changes on the engineering water structure capacity, operation and maintenance.

     

A Shift Towards Integrated and Adaptive Water Management in South Korea: Building Resilience Against Climate Change

Water Resources Management - There is growing evidence that the global meteorological cycle, on which most countries depend for water security, is deviating from traditional patterns due to climate...     

气候变化对黄河水资源的影响及其适应性管理

气候变化将直接影响降水、蒸散发和径流等水文要素,并在一定程度上改变水资源量及其时空分布,进一步影响水资源利用格局及水安全形势。气候变化对水资源安全的影响是国际上普遍关心的全球性问题,也是我国可持续发展面临的重大战略问题。黄河作为中华民族的母亲河,在全球气候变化的条件下,水资源的供需矛盾日益尖锐。结合黄河的水资源特点,研究和评价了气候变化情景下黄河水资源的脆弱性,并从配置、利用、调度、管理方面系统地提出了适应性对策:探讨有序适应的黄河流域水资源优化配置方案;完善水沙调控体系,探讨高效输沙模式;合理开发非常规水资源;优化调整梯级水库运用方式;实施最严格的水资源管理制度;积极实施外流域调水。     

Assessing the Governance Capacity of Cities to Address Challenges of Water,Waste, and Climate Change

The challenges of water, waste, and climate change in cities are overwhelming and underpin the importance of overcoming governance issues impeding adaptation. These “governance challenges” typically have fragmented scopes, viewpoints, and responsibilities. As there are many causes leading to this uncertainty and disagreement, there is no single best approach to solve these governance challenges. In fact, what is necessary is iterative and requires governance capacity to find dynamic long-term solutions that are supported by flexible interim targets, so as to anticipate emerging barriers and changing situations. The literature contains a plethora of governance gaps, barriers, and capacities, which sometimes overlap, are contradictory and case-specific, and reflect disciplinary scopes. We argue that a balanced set of well-developed conditions is needed, to obtain the governance capacity that enables effective change. Therefore, we aim to obtain deeper understanding of the key conditions determining the urban water governance capacity, by developing an integrated empirical-based approach that enables consistent city comparisons and facilitates decision-making. We propose a governance capacity framework focusing on five governance challenges: 1) water scarcity, 2) flood risk, 3) wastewater treatment, 4) solid waste treatment and 5) urban heat islands. Nine governance conditions, each with three indicators, are identified and empirically assessed using a Likert-type scoring method. The framework is illustrated by a case study on Amsterdam, the Netherlands. We conclude our approach shows great potential to improve our understanding of the key conditions determining the governance capacity to find solutions to the urban challenges of water, waste, and climate change.     

Water Resources Under Climate Change in Himalayan Basins

Water Resources Management - Climate change has significant implications for glaciers and water resources in the Himalayan region. There is an urgent need to improve our current knowledge and...     

Collaborative Planning in Adaptive Flood Risk Management under Climate Change

Flood risk management (FRM) is moving towards more proactive and collaborative direction to enable adaptation to changing conditions. We present a case study on collaborative planning process, which contributed to the development of adaptive FRM in one of the largest river basins in Finland. The focus was on the possibility and acceptability of using large regulated lakes as storage for flood water in an extreme flood event to decrease flood damage at the downstream riverside towns. We defined an extreme flood event that would cause dramatic flood damage and developed tools for simulating the event with alternative regulation strategies using Watershed Simulation and Forecasting System (WSFS). We organized a stakeholder event to demonstrate the alternative lake regulation strategies, their socio-economic consequences, and to discuss their acceptability. We found that storing flood water in the lakes above the regulation limits and preparing for winter floods in advance by lowering the lakes in the autumn can minimize the total damage in the target area. The majority of stakeholders considered these actions acceptable in an extreme flood event, regardless of deliberately induced flooding of areas where no floods have occurred for over 50 years. However, lowering the lakes in the autumn on annual basis gained less support. We emphasize the importance of deliberations on the FRM procedures and responsibilities in extreme flood events with the stakeholders in advance to increase adaptive capacity and legitimacy of decisions.     

Boundary Judgments in Water Governance: Diagnosing Internal and External Factors that Matter in a Complex World

Governance failures are widely recognized as a key reason why, despite sustained attention over previous decades, many longstanding water problems continue to go unsolved around the world. A major challenge in analyzing and addressing water governance problems is making “boundary judgments” in the face of complexity. Improving water governance requires accounting for a diverse and sometimes unclear set of internal and external factors that cause water problems. For example, drivers, actors, and institutions implicated may be both “internal” or “external” to a water governance system, depending on how problem boundaries are delineated. This problem confronts researchers and practitioners alike, and although recognition is growing, it remains extremely challenging to practically address. Diagnostic approaches are needed to deal with the complexity of contemporary water governance problems. In this paper, we propose a practical diagnostic approach to support structured, context-specific, critical diagnostic inquiry. We build on complementary initiatives emerging in other fields, paying particular attention to external factors that are often neglected, while being sensitive to the capacity constraints of policymakers and practitioners. The approach is flexible in allowing for either cursory or in-depth analysis as appropriate in a given situation. This allows for the identification of tangible improvements and “small wins” to improve water governance systems within a bigger-picture perspective of the diverse causes of water governance problems. Innovatively, we take a user-oriented perspective to support researchers and policymakers in practice, and break new ground in providing tractable tools for dealing with complexity in water governance.     

Developing Purposeful and Adaptive Institutions for Effective Environmental Water Governance

Refashioning the institutions we use to manage and allocate water resources so as to provide for environmental water requirements has been a major element of the National Water Reform agenda in Australia since 1994, and represents a very significant potential innovation in the way water resources are managed. This essay addresses three central components of this institutional innovation: processes to reach an ecologically sustainable allocation of water resources; instruments to provide for and protect environmental water; and the development of management frameworks for rivers with environmental water regimes. The discussion explores the considerable constraints encountered in achieving institutions for effective environmental water allocation in the context of the Murray-Darling Basin, the major river basin in south-eastern Australia. Central to this discussion are fundamental questions of governance: who makes substantive decisions on water allocation and management; on what basis and for what purpose? What tools are developing to move towards desired outcomes? How effective are they within the broader institutional context? Given the incremental and, in many cases, ineffective implementation of environmental reform measures to date; and the additional uncertainties, complexities and urgencies posed by climate scenarios; this essay argues for a re-orientation of the policy agenda and its implementation, towards a more purposeful and adaptive governance model.     

Managing Water Resources to Adapt to Climate Change: Facing Uncertainty and Scarcity in a Changing Context

Some of the most significant future efforts in water resources management will be devoted to climate change adaptation. Climate change adaptation is of special concern in regions facing water scarcity where water management is already challenged by many problems. This paper is a review of current knowledge on approaches to address water issues under uncertainty in water-scarce regions, identifying specific policy actions for climate change adaptation. The focus is on regions, like the Mediterranean, California or Australia, where water resources are well developed and have become an essential part of socioeconomic activities but are currently facing significant challenges due to their dependence on water availability to maintain living standards. We provide an overview of the expected impacts of climate change on water resources and discuss management responses based on peer-reviewed studies published over the past three decades. The adaptation choices cover a wide range of options, from adaptive demand management to utilization of remaining marginal water sources. The intensification of successful measures already applied in the past is still viewed as a solution to reduce climate impacts. However, the emphasis is progressively being placed on sustainability, developing and extending the water management paradigm to include not only technical and economic criteria, but also ecological and social considerations.     

气候变化对大型水利工程的影响

气候变化将导致流域降雨径流关系、水文极端事件的大小和频率发生改变，影响大型水利工程的建设标准、规模和运行规程。以三峡工程和南水北调工程为例，介绍了气候变化对大型水利工程设计、运行等方面的可能影响。     

Assessment of Water Resources Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change

This paper provides an overview of the 'standard' methodology developed for the United States Country Studies Program on the Assessment of Water Resources Vulnerability and Adaptation to Clim ate Change. The methodology is described in more detail in accompanying articles in this issue. A standard methodology was developed for two reasons. First, for countries with little or no experience in hydrologic and water resources modelling, it provided a simple, yet appropriate set of modelling tools that could be quickly learned and applied with a limited data set. Second, it provided a consistent methodology for synthesizing results for regional and global assessments as well as cross-country and cross-regional comparisons.     

Unravelling Stakeholder Perceptions to Enable Adaptive Water Governance in Dryland Systems

Adaptive water governance seeks to increase a social-ecological system’s adaptive capacity in the face of uncertainty and change. This is especially important in non-linear dryland systems that are already exposed to water scarcity and increasing degradation. Conservation of water ecosystem services is key for increasing adaptive capacity in drylands, however, how stakeholders perceive water ecosystem services greatly affects how they are managed, as well as the potential for adaptive water governance. This paper focuses on identifying the system’s potential for enabling adaptive water governance by analysing different stakeholder perceptions on water ecosystem services. It takes the Rio del Carmen watershed as a case study, offering important insights for an increasing number of water-scarce regions. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with key stakeholders in the watershed in order to unravel their perceptions and understand the governance context. We found disparities in how stakeholders perceive water ecosystem services have led to water overexploitation and several conflicts over water access. Our results indicate that stakeholder perceptions have a major influence on the system’s adaptability, as they shape the acquisition of water ecosystem services. Divergent stakeholder perceptions act as an important barrier to collaboration. Generating and sharing knowledge could facilitate the development of a common vision, allowing all actors to co-create information about water ecosystem services and the system state, engaging them in a participatory process, suitable for their context, and that will better support adaptive water governance.     

Quantifying the Urban Water Supply Impacts of Climate Change

The difference in timing between water supply and urban water demand necessitates water storage. Existing reservoirs were designed based upon hydrologic data from a given historical period, and, given recent evidence for climatic change, may be insufficient to meet demand under future climate change scenarios. The focus of this study is to present a generally applicable methodology to assess the ability of existing storage to meet urban water demand under present and projected future climatic scenarios, and to determine the effectiveness of storage capacity expansions. Uncertainties in climatic forcing and projected demand scenarios are considered explicitly by the models. The reservoir system in San Diego, California is used as a case study. We find that the climate change scenarios will be more costly to the city than scenarios using historical hydrologic parameters. The magnitude of the expected costs and the optimal investment policy are sensitive to projected population growth and the accuracy to which our model can predict spills.     

Integrating a Climate Change Assessment Tool into Stakeholder-Driven Water Management Decision-Making Processes in California

There is an emerging consensus in the scientific community that climate change has the potential to significantly alter prevailing hydrologic patterns in California over the course of the 21st Century. This is of profound importance for a system where large investments have been made in hydraulic infrastructure that has been designed and is operated to harmonize dramatic temporal and spatial water supply and water demand variability. Recent work by the authors led to the creation of an integrated hydrology/water management climate change impact assessment framework that can be used to identify tradeoffs between important ecosystem services provided by the California water system associated with future climate change and to evaluate possible adaptation strategies. In spite of the potential impact of climate change, and the availability of a tool for investigating its dimensions, actual water management decision-making processes in California have yet to fully integrate climate change analysis into their planning dialogues. This paper presents an overview of decision-making processes ranked based on the application of a 3S: Sensitivity, Significance, and Stakeholder support, standard, which demonstrates that while climate change is a crucial factor in virtually all water-related decision making in California, it has not typically been considered, at least in any analytical sense. The three highest ranked processes are described in more detail, in particular the role that the new analytical framework could play in arriving at more resilient water management decisions. The authors will engage with stakeholders in these three processes, in hope of moving climate change research from the academic to the policy making arena.     

气候变化对大海波水库来水及用水影响

为分析在未来气候变化情景下大海波水库来水及用水的变化情况,选取楚雄站蒸发(1953年-2001年)、降水(1953年-2009年)、气温等气象资料,以及大海波水库(1990年-2009年)来水量资料,采用线性回归法、Mann-Kendall及Spearman趋势检测法对楚雄站点的气象要素进行趋势检测,并计算了水库下游参考作物需水量。结果表明:大海波水库的来水量呈减少趋势,下游参考作物需水量呈下降趋势;在未来气候情景下,楚雄年平均气温将升高2.56℃,年降水变化率为5.9%,气温升高时,下游参考作物需水量增加,对大海波水库的供水带来一定的不利影响。     

Climate Change Impacts on the Water Supply of Thessaloniki

This paper examines the assessment of the impacts of climate change on water resources in the Aliakmon river basin, Northern Greece, and on some critical water management issues, such as reservoir storage and water supply of the city of Thessaloniki. A monthly conceptual water balance model was calibrated using historical hydrometeorological data. This model was applied to estimate runoffs in the entrance of the Polyfyto reservoir under two different equilibrium scenarios (UKHI, CCC) referring to 2050. Reduction of the mean annual runoff, mean winter runoff and summer runoff would occur. By using these scenarios, the sensitivity of the risk associated with the water supply for the city of Thessaloniki was evaluated under conditions of altered runoff. Increases of the risks associated with the annual quantities of water supply were observed, particularly under the UKHI scenario.     

Governance and Climate Vulnerability Index

Water resources in the Middle East are under enormous stress, due to an increase in population growth and the extensive use of water resources, which exceeds the water demand in this regional bloc. Moreover, climatic changes pose another dimension of stress on water resources; these changes have significant environmental, social, and economic effects. In fact, the governance of these countries has the tendency of increasing this stress or decreasing it, depending on its performance and efficiency in applying policies, legislation and managerial plans towards decreasing the poverty and the vulnerability of the countries specially those suffering from poverty. In this paper, the vulnerability of five countries-Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Syria??will be assessed based on the extent of climate changes and the type of climate governance and their effects on water resources. This paper will introduce a new index, which will be called the Governance and Climate Vulnerability Index (GCVI). The index will measure the vulnerability of each country vis-à-vis water-related issues, while taking into account governance and climatic indicators. The vulnerability of these countries will also be ranked, for purposes of comparison. This paper concludes with the recommendation for governments to develop appropriate water resources management and to improve their environmental policies, including raising awareness on multiple levels. These strategies are expected to lead to decreased vulnerability to climatic changes.     

The Impacts of Climate Variability and Future Climate Change in the Nile Basin on Water Resources in Egypt

This paper describes the application of hydrologic models of the Blue Nile and Lake Victoria sub-basins to assess the magnitude of potential impacts of climate change on Main Nile discharge. The models are calibrated to simulate historical observed runoff and then driven with the temperature and precipitation changes from three general circulation model (GCM) climate scenarios. The differences in the resulting magnitude and direction of changes in runoff highlight the inter-model differences in future climate change scenarios. A 'wet' case, 'dry' case and composite case produced +15 (+12), -9 (-9) and + 1(+7) per cent changes in mean annual Blue Nile (Lake Victoria) runoff for 2025, respectively. These figures are used to estimate changes in the availability of Nile water in Egypt by making assumptions about the runoff response in the other Nile sub-basins and the continued use of the Nile Waters Agreement. Comparison of these availability scenarios with demand projections for Egypt show a slight surplus of water in 2025 with and without climate change. If, however, water demand for desert reclamation is taken into account then water deficits occur for the present-day situation and also 2025 with ('dry' case GCM only) and without climate change. A revision of Egypt's allocation of Nile water based on the recent low-flow decade-mean flows of the Nile (1981-90) shows that during this period Egypt's water use actually exceeded availability. The magnitude of 'natural' fluctuations in discharge therefore has very important consequences for water resource management regardless of future climate change.