Preliminary Water Assessment Reports of The Test Basins of The Watch Project

This report presents the initial plans of the case studies how they link to rest of the Watch project and on which water resources they will focus. This report will function as the basis for further discussions on how to improve the integration of the case studies within the project and to develop a more general protocol for each of the case studies. Currently 5 catchments are used within the Watch project, they differ in climatic and hydro-geological features and expected climate changes: the Glomma River basin (Eastern Norway), the upper Guadiana basin (Central Spanish Plateau), the Nitra River basin (central Slovakia), the Upper-Elbe basin (part of the Elbe River) and the island of Crete. Also the water resources issues vary over these cases. Agricultural (and domestic) water use is under pressure in the Mediterranean catchments probably aggravating with the expected increase in drought frequency under future climate. The Norwegian catchment provides hydropower services under threat of precipitation increase rather than decrease. The central European catchments are threatened mainly by increased variability, i.e. increased frequencies of extremes in a densely populated environment, and river flow may need additional buffers (reservoirs) to reduce floodrisk and store water for dry period