Managing Climate Risk in Water Supply Systems

Water resources systems provide multiple services and, if managed properly, can contribute significantly to social well-being and economic growth. However, extreme or unexpected hydroclimatic conditions, such as droughts and floods, can adversely affect or even completely interrupt these services. This text seeks to provide knowledge, resources and techniques for water resources professionals to manage the risks and opportunities arising from hydroclimatic variability and change. Managing Climate Risk in Water Supply Systems provides materials and tools designed to empower technical professionals to better understand the key issues in water supply systems

Decision Analysis for Management of Natural Hazards

Losses from natural hazards, including geophysical and hydrometeorological hazards, have been increasing worldwide. This review focuses on the process by which scientific evidence about natural hazards is applied to support decision making. Decision analysis typically involves estimating the probability of extreme events; assessing the potential impacts of those events from a variety of perspectives; and evaluating options to plan for, mitigate, or react to events. We consider issues that affect decisions made across a range of natural hazards, summarize decision methodologies, and provide examples of applications of decision analysis to the management of natural hazards. We conclude that there is potential for further exchange of ideas and experience between natural hazard research communities on decision analysis approaches. Broader application of decision methodologies to natural hazard management and evaluation of existing decision approaches can potentially lead to more efficient allocation of scarce resources and more efficient risk management

Using applied palaeoecology and participatory system dynamics modelling to investigate changes in ecosystem services in response to climate and social-ecological drivers within the middle berg river catchment, South Africa

Conservation and agricultural landscapes are social-ecological systems that co-produce ecosystem services, which change over time in response to environmental, biotic and social drivers. Failure to consider this variability, and the feedbacks that cause system instability, can have consequences for sustainable ecosystem services provision. A transdisciplinary approach is needed to understand the interacting processes that drive the dynamics of ecosystem service provision. This study applies a conceptual meta-framework: past-present-future lens of environmental change to interpret changes in land cover and ecosystem services, with the aim of informing sustainable land-use management within the Cape Floristic Region, a globally recognised biodiversity hotspot. The project methodology followed a four-part structure: (1) Changes in land cover, fire, herbivory, and hydrological indicators were reconstructed using palaeoecological proxies (fossil pollen, charcoal, coprophilous spores, geochemistry, and diatoms) from two sites and associated sedimentary cores. (2) Palaeoecological data were interpreted in terms of supporting/provisioning (plant biodiversity) and regulating (water quality and soil erosion regulation) services, and (3) the drivers of these changes (climate, fire and herbivory) were analysed. (4) A pilot study used participatory system dynamics modelling to articulate dynamic feedbacks and explore future scenarios. Palaeoecological and modelling results explored resilience and thresholds in ecosystem services, defined the historical range of variability and was used to generate management recommendations. Results showed that (1) high temporal resolution, multi-proxy data suggested variability in ecosystem services. (2) Ecosystem change was driven mainly by climate in the early palaeo-records with increasing anthropogenic influence from the mid-20th C, and (3) although some plant biodiversity and landscape heterogeneity was lost, the main vegetation elements remain, suggesting no environmental thresholds have yet been crossed. (4) Even so, model simulation results show that it may be difficult to return to past ecological states. Adaptive grazing-fire management is recommended to maintain and restore ecosystem function, thereby decreasing the likelihood of future regime shifts to a degraded alternative stable state. This innovative interdisciplinary approach provides a contextual understanding of processes that influence dynamic social-ecological systems and translates long-term data into a form that can be used by policymakers and land-use managers to inform sustainable management of ecosystem services

Integrated water resources management under uncertainty: exploring interconnected technological, infrastructural and institutional solutions

2018 Summer.Includes bibliographical references.Rapidly growing populations in many of the world's semiarid regions intensify competition for increasingly scarce freshwater resources. Growing urban demands, land-use change, and a changing climate will further exacerbate regional vulnerability to water scarcity. The intensification of these trends creates several challenges for the future planning and management of water resources. In this work we employ the use of an integrated socioeconomic, hydrologic, and ecological modeling framework to quantify the effects of water rights allocation on a representative semiarid river basin. Through this framework we analyze the tradeoffs of several water management practices, institutional settings, and regional policies on municipal and agricultural sectors. Generally, the agent-based adoption of water management strategies can alleviate the harm of water scarcity while providing positive feedbacks to reducing municipal costs and increasing agricultural profit from production. Household adoption of xeriscaping is considered the most important technology to lower urban demands and offset the negative externalities of rural-to-urban water transfers. Additionally, an uninhibited water market leads to the most effective allocation of water rights, providing benefits to both rural and municipal communities. The future allocation of water rights under climatic, institutional, agricultural, and technological uncertainty shows significant sensitivity to fluctuations in water conveyance infrastructure costs. Such changes in infrastructure costs (i.e. 50% to 150%) can nearly double the expected costs of reliably supplying water to urban households. However, urban water supply planners can incentivize the adoption of water management practices to stabilize these costs. Further, required water purchases for land developers set by urban planners can be used as a key policy tool for keeping costs low. This work contributes to existing literature in integrated water resources management to help understand the effects of water scarcity and provide practical solutions for urban water planners in rapidly urbanizing semiarid regions

Identification of potential “Remedies” for Air Pollution (nitrogen) Impacts on Designated Sites (RAPIDS)

Atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition is a significant threat to semi-natural habitats and species in the UK, resulting in on-going erosion of habitat quality and declines in many species of high conservation value. The project focused on impacts and remedies for designated conservation sites, especially Natura 2000 sites protected under the EU Habitats Directive. However, the approach and certainly the measures could be equally applied to other areas of high conservation value. Evidence was drawn together to develop a framework for identifying key N threats at individual sites as a basis to target mitigation options in the context of potential legislative, voluntary and financial instruments