TWINLATIN: Twinning European and Latin-American river basins for research enabling sustainable water resources management. Combined Report D3.1 Hydrological modelling report and D3.2 Evaluation report

Water use has almost tripled over the past 50 years and in some regions the water demand already exceeds supply (Vorosmarty et al., 2000). The world is facing a “global water crisis”; in many countries, current levels of water use are unsustainable, with systems vulnerable to collapse from even small changes in water availability. The need for a scientifically-based assessment of the potential impacts on water resources of future changes, as a basis for society to adapt to such changes, is strong for most parts of the world. Although the focus of such assessments has tended to be climate change, socio-economic changes can have as significant an impact on water availability across the four main use sectors i.e. domestic, agricultural, industrial (including energy) and environmental. Withdrawal and consumption of water is expected to continue to grow substantially over the next 20-50 years (Cosgrove & Rijsberman, 2002), and consequent changes in availability may drastically affect society and economies. One of the most needed improvements in Latin American river basin management is a higher level of detail in hydrological modelling and erosion risk assessment, as a basis for identification and analysis of mitigation actions, as well as for analysis of global change scenarios. Flow measurements are too costly to be realised at more than a few locations, which means that modelled data are required for the rest of the basin. Hence, TWINLATIN Work Package 3 “Hydrological modelling and extremes” was formulated to provide methods and tools to be used by other WPs, in particular WP6 on “Pollution pressure and impact analysis” and WP8 on “Change effects and vulnerability assessment”. With an emphasis on high and low flows and their impacts, WP3 was originally called “Hydrological modelling, flooding, erosion, water scarcity and water abstraction”. However, at the TWINLATIN kick-off meeting it was agreed that some of these issues resided more appropriately in WP6 and WP8, and so WP3 was renamed to focus on hydrological modelling and hydrological extremes. The specific objectives of WP3 as set out in the Description of Work are

Dynamics of the African Plate 75 Ma: From Plate Kinematic Reconstructions to Intraplate Paleo-Stresses

Plate reconstruction studies show that the Neotethys Ocean was closing due to the convergence of Africa and Eurasia toward the end of the Cretaceous. The period around 75 Ma reflects the onset of continental collision between the two plates as convergence continued to be taken up mostly by subduction of the Neotethys slab beneath Eurasia. The Owen transform plate boundary in the northeast accommodated the fast northward motion of the Indian plate relative to the African plate. The rest of the plate was surrounded by mid-ocean ridges. Africa was experiencing continent-wide rifting related to northeast-southwest extension. We aim to quantify the forces and paleostresses that may have driven this continental extension. We use the latest plate kinematic reconstructions in a grid search to estimate horizontal gravitational stresses (HGSs), plate boundary forces, and the plate's interaction with the asthenosphere. The contribution of dynamic topography to HGSs is based on recent mantle convection studies. We model intraplate stresses and compare them with the strain observations. The fit to observations favors models where dynamic topography amplitudes are smaller than 300 m. The results also indicate that the net pull transmitted from slab to the surface African plate was low. To put this into context, we notice that available tectonic reconstructions show fragmented subduction zones and various colliding micro-continents along the northern margin of the African plate around this time. We therefore interpret a low net pull as resulting from either a small average slab length or from the micro-continents' resistance to subduction

Agriculture Beyond Food: Experiences from Indonesia

The ABF programme addresses one of today’s major societal challenges, how to achieve a sustainable and inclusive biobased economy, with high-level scientific research on the thin lines between food and non-food, commodities and waste products, livelihood opportunities and risks, and local and global economy. This book provides insights into the main issues and key questions relating to the biobased economy, reflects on the objectives of the ABF programme, and offers policy recommendations. It summarises the projects conducted within the three major clusters at the heart of the programme: migration and forest transformation, breakthroughs in biofuel production technology, and the commoditisation of an alternative biofuel crop. The book ends with a number of lessons learned from the ABF programme on interdisciplinary programming