Biologia Futura: integrating freshwater ecosystem health in water resources management

Sustainable water use implies the simultaneous protection of water quality and quantity. Beyond their function to support human needs such as drinking water provision, transportation and recreation freshwater bodies are also habitats. Conceiving them as water users on their own with respective biological, physico-chemical and morphological requirements could help maintaining their healthy state. Healthy freshwater ecosystems are also attractive for high-value human uses. Dwindling per capita availability of water, increasing demands, human well-being and climate change lead to competition for, and pressures on freshwater ecosystems. This has been conceptualized through the modification of the drivers–pressures–state–impacts–responses framework. This distinguishes between pressures, associated with the achievement of human well-being, and stressors, which are defined as the negative effect of excessive pressures or combination thereof on aquatic ecosystems. Guidelines usually specify threshold values to classify water bodies as appropriate for certain utilitarian uses. However, only few guidelines focus on freshwater ecosystem health. Eight guidelines for monitoring of freshwater ecosystem health were analysed in the UNEP-funded project “International Water Quality Guidelines for Ecosystems”. Based on this review, general benchmark values are proposed for key physico-chemical indicators. Furthermore, adaptive pathways towards improved monitoring and protection of the health of freshwater ecosystems are recommended. In this paper, we review the main findings of the report and also review its recent uptake. Water quality guidelines for freshwater ecosystems cannot be conceived without societal consensus and vision. Different climatic, geographical and socioeconomic contexts are to be considered too. Their development is embedded in an adaptive cycle. Its multiple phases and steps indicate a long-term approach including reassessment and potential revisions

Impact of climate change on water resources of upper Kharun catchment in Chhattisgarh, India

Study region The Upper Kharun Catchment (UKC) is one of the most important, economically sound and highly populated watersheds of Chhattisgarh state in India. The inhabitants strongly depend on monsoon and are severely prone to water stress. Study focus This research aims to assess the impact of climate change on water balance components. New hydrological insights for the region The station-level bias-corrected PRECIS (Providing REgional Climates for Impact Studies) projections generally show increasing trends for annual rainfall and temperature. Hydrological simulations, performed by SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool), indicate over-proportional runoff-rainfall and under-proportional percolation-rainfall relationships. Simulated annual discharge for 2020s will decrease by 2.9% on average (with a decrease of 25.9% for q1 to an increase by 23.6% for q14); for 2050s an average increase by 12.4% (17.6% decrease for q1 to 39.4% increase for q0); for 2080s an average increase of 39.5% (16.3% increase for q1 to an increase of 63.7% for q0). Respective ranges on percolation: for 2020s an average decrease by 0.8% (12.8% decrease for q1 to an increase of 8.7% for q14); for 2050s an average increase by 2.5% (10.3% decrease for q1 to 15.4% increase for q0); for 2080s an average increase by 7.5% (0.3% decrease for q1 to 13.7% increase for q0). These over- and under-proportional relationships indicate future enhancement of floods and question sufficiency of groundwater recharge. Abbreviations ARS, Agricultural Research Service; ZEF, Center for Development Research; CGCOST, Chhattisgarh Council of Science and Technology; GCM, General Circulation Model; DAAD, German Academic Exchange Service; IITM, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology; IMK-IFU, Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research; IPCC, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; KIT, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology; NDVI, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index; PRECIS, Providing Regional Climates for Impact Studies; RCM, Regional Climate Model; SWAT, Soil and Water Assessment Tool; USDA, United States Department of Agriculture; UKC, Upper Kharun Catchmen

Capacity challenges in water quality monitoring: understanding the role of human development

Monitoring the qualitative status of freshwaters is an important goal of the international community, as stated in the Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs) indicator 6.3.2 on good ambient water quality. Monitoring data are, however, lacking in many countries, allegedly because of capacity challenges of less-developed countries. So far, however, the relationship between human development and capacity challenges for water quality monitoring have not been analysed systematically. This hinders the implementation of fine-tuned capacity development programmes for water quality monitoring. Against this background, this study takes a global perspective in analysing the link between human development and the capacity challenges countries face in their national water quality monitoring programmes. The analysis is based on the latest data on the human development index and an international online survey amongst experts from science and practice. Results provide evidence of a negative relationship between human development and the capacity challenges to meet SDG 6.3.2 monitoring requirements. This negative relationship increases along the course of the monitoring process, from defining the enabling environment, choosing parameters for the collection of field data, to the analytics and analysis of five commonly used parameters (DO, EC, pH, TP and TN). Our assessment can be used to help practitioners improve technical capacity development activities and to identify and target investment in capacity development for monitoring

Mapping temporally-variable exposure to flooding in small Mediterranean basins using land-use indicators

This article deals with mapping exposure (or external vulnerability) to flood risk in two typical Mediterranean ephemeral streams: the Barranco de Carraixet and the Rambla de Poyo. The floodplains of both streams are within the metropolitan area of the city of Valencia (Spain"s third largest city). Following the Mediterranean model, they are very fertile areas (with intense periurban and highly productive agriculture) which have recently absorbed the great urban expansion of the metropolis. Hydrologically these basins remain dry for most of the year, but become particularly dangerous during flash-flood events. They generate a risk pattern highly dependent on exposure since, in general, the hazard factor is very difficult to map, given the unpredictable nature of flash-floods. This work constitutes a proof of concept based on simple estimators obtained from land uses. External vulnerability or exposure is evaluated as a function of economic land value and human exposure to hazard. Land value is directly taken from the cadastre whilst human exposure is indirectly estimated from the location of population in relation to timeeactivity profiles. The temporal dimension is introduced and three exposure scenarios have been mapped, related to different time periods: working days, nights, weekends and holidays. The results show different patterns of exposure for each plain. In Carraixet floodplain exposure is greater at night and on weekends and holidays than during working hours, on account of the dominant agricultural and residential land uses. In the Poyo plain there are no major contrasts in absolute terms between day and night time, although spatial patterns of exposure vary from day to night: during the day, exposure is higher in industrial and commercial areas (around communication routes) whilst at night residential areas show more exposure

A discursive review of the textual use of ‘trapped’ in environmental migration studies: The conceptual birth and troubled teenage years of trapped populations

First mooted in 2011, the concept of Trapped Populations referring to people unable to move from environmentally high-risk areas broadened the study of human responses to environmental change. While a seemingly straightforward concept, the underlying discourses around the reasons for being ‘trapped’, and the language describing the concept have profound influences on the way in which policy and practice approaches the needs of populations at risk from environmental stresses and shocks. In this article, we apply a Critical Discourse Analysis to the academic literature on the subject to reveal some of the assumptions implicit within discussing ‘trapped’ populations. The analysis reveals a dominant school of thought that assisted migration, relocation, and resettlement in the face of climate change are potentially effective adaptation strategies along a gradient of migrant agency and governance

Resilience and Vulnerability: Conceptual revolution(s) or only revolving around words? A collection of essays, working papers and think pieces from the period 2008-2018

This volume is a collection of thoughts and ideas around the concepts of resilience and vulnerability related to their application in the context of disaster risk. Each of the chapters can be classified as an essay, a working paper, or simply as a think piece. Irrespective of different contexts and themes they are united as they represent efforts to grasp the elusive concepts of vulnerability, resilience, exposure, risk in context of natural hazards or wilful destruction and the potential disasters these may cause. One further common feature of these pieces put together in this volume is that they were never really became known and acknowledged. Most of these writings, or versions thereof have never been published in printed media. They all originate from the period between 2008 and 2018. Some of these “early thoughts” might have been premature then. We speculate however, that in light of the present state of the international scientific discourse in the respective area and the ever flourishing conceptual debates around vulnerability and resilience some of the ideas found in these “hidden essays” may trigger second thoughts and hence could enliven the present debates. Thus next to be the historical documentation of what has been pondered on a decade ago, some scientific follow up may occur