iLEAPS report on The WATCH IP: Water and Global Change. IGBP Annual Progress Report

Abstract

WATCH is a integrated project bringing together the hydrological, water resources and climate communities to analyse, quantify and predict the components of the current (20th C) and future (21st C) global water cycle. The project aims to evaluate the uncertainties of, and clarify the overall vulnerability of, global water resources related to the main societal and economic sectors. Over the past year the WATCH project has brought together cross cutting activities, underpinned by the production of common data sets accompanied by increasing understanding across the community. The major output of the 20th century analysis has been the delivery of the WATCH Forcing Data (WFD). An important aspect of this data set has been the extensive testing programme, for example against FLUXNET data series. This landmark dataset has been well received across the WATCH community and is generating considerable interest from the wider community. It is being used as a basis of analysis in most of the other parts of the project, in particular within the WaterMIP project as well as by regional river basin modellers