Implications of climate change on flow regime affecting Atlantic salmon

International audienceThe UKCIP02 climate change scenarios (2070?2100) suggest that the UK climate will become warmer (an overall increase of 2.5?3°C), with temperature increases being greater in the summer and autumn than in the spring and winter seasons. In terms of precipitation, winters are expected to become wetter and summers drier throughout the UK. The effect of changes in the future climate on flow regimes are investigated for the Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar, in a case study in an upland UK river. Using a hydraulic modelling approach, flows simulated across the catchment are assessed in terms of hydraulic characteristics (discharge per metre width, flow depths, flow velocities and Froude number). These, compared with suitable characteristics published in the literature for various life stages of Atlantic salmon, enable assessment of habitat suitability. Climate change factors have been applied to meteorological observations in the Eden catchment (north-west England) and effects on the flow regime have been investigated using the SHETRAN hydrological modelling system. High flows are predicted to increase by up to 1.5%; yet, a greater impact is predicted from decreasing low flows (e.g. a Q95 at the outlet of the study catchment may decrease to a Q85 flow). Reliability, Resilience and Vulnerability (RRV) analysis provides a statistical indication of the extent and effect of such changes on flows. Results show that future climate will decrease the percentage time the ideal minimum physical habitat requirements will be met. In the case of suitable flow depth for spawning activity at the outlet of the catchment, the percentage time may decrease from 100% under current conditions to 94% in the future. Such changes will have implications for the species under the Habitats Directive and for catchment ecological flow management strategies

Intercomparison of global reanalysis precipitation for flood risk modelling

Reanalysis datasets are increasingly used to drive flood models, especially for continental and global analysis and in areas of data scarcity. However, the consequence of this for risk estimation has not been fully explored. We investigate the implications of four reanalysis products (ERA-5, CFSR, MERRA-2 and JRA-55) on simulations of historic flood events in five basins in England. These results are compared to a benchmark national gauge-based product (CEH-GEAR1hr). The benchmark demonstrated better accuracy than reanalysis products when compared with observations of water depth and flood extent. All reanalysis products predicted fewer buildings would be inundated by the events than the national dataset. JRA-55 was the worst by a significant margin, underestimating by 40 % compared with 14 %–18 % for the other reanalysis products. CFSR estimated building inundation the most accurately, while ERA-5 demonstrated the lowest error in terms of river stage (29.4 %) and floodplain depth (28.6 %). Accuracy varied geographically, and no product performed best across all basins. Global reanalysis products provide a useful resource for flood modelling where no other data are available, but they should be used with caution due to the underestimation of impacts shown here. Until a more systematic international strategy for the collection of rainfall and flood impact data ensures more complete global coverage for validation, multiple reanalysis products should be used concurrently to capture the range of uncertainties.</p

Modelling the impacts of projected future climate change on water resources in north-west England

International audienceOver the last two decades, the frequency of water resource drought in the UK, coupled with the more recent pan-European drought of 2003, has increased concern over changes in climate. Using the UKCIP02 Medium-High (SRES A2) scenario for 2070?2100, this study investigates the impact of climate change on the operation of the Integrated Resource Zone (IRZ), a complex conjunctive-use water supply system in north-western England. The results indicate that the contribution of individual sources to yield may change substantially but that overall yield is reduced by only 18%. Notwithstanding this significant effect on water supply, the flexibility of the system enables it to meet modelled demand for much of the time under the future climate scenario, even without a change in system management, but at significant expense for pumping additional abstraction from lake and borehole sources. This research provides a basis for the future planning and management of the complex water resource system in the north-west of England

Flood modelling for cities using Cloud computing

Urban flood risk modelling is a highly topical example of intensive computational processing. Such processing is increasingly required by a range of organisations including local government, engineering consultancies and the insurance industry to fulfil statutory requirements and provide professional services. As the demands for this type of work become more common, then ownership of high-end computational resources is warranted but if use is more sporadic and with tight deadlines then the use of Cloud computing could provide a cost-effective alternative. However, uptake of the Cloud by such organisations is often thwarted by the perceived technical barriers to entry. In this paper we present an architecture that helps to simplify the process of performing parameter sweep work on an Infrastructure as a Service Cloud. A parameter sweep version of the urban flood modelling, analysis and visualisation software “CityCat” was developed and deployed to estimate spatial and temporal flood risk at a whole city scale – far larger than had previously been possible. Performing this work on the Cloud allowed us access to more computing power than we would have been able to purchase locally for such a short time-frame (∼21 months of processing in a single calendar month). We go further to illustrate the considerations, both functional and non-functional, which need to be addressed if such an endeavour is to be successfully achieved

A Program to Treat Hepatitis B in North Korea: A Model of Antiviral Therapy in a Resource-poor Setting

Despite the well-proven, safe and effective therapies for hepatitis B infection, delivery of treatment remains a significant challenge in resource-poor settings. Geopolitical and economic restrictions present additional difficulties in providing care in North Korea. However, treatment of patients with chronic hepatitis B remains a top priority for both the North Korean Ministry of Public Health and international agencies working in North Korean hepatitis healthcare facilities. Working in partnership, a path was created to institute this much-needed program. A consortium of United States and Australian humanitarian non-governmental organizations along with generous individual and corporate donors working in concert with local and national health authorities have succeeded in establishing the first hepatitis B treatment program in North Korea. The essential elements of this program include renovation of existing hepatitis hospitals, access to antiviral medications, establishment of laboratory facilities, creation of medical documentation and record-keeping, training of local health care professionals, and quarterly visits by international volunteer physicians and laboratory experts. Management and treatment decisions are made bilaterally. To date, nearly 1,500 patients have been evaluated, and over 800 have been started on long-term antiviral therapy. It is envisioned that this program will eventually be managed and funded by the Democratic People\u27s Republic of Korea Ministry of Public Health. This program\u27s success demonstrates a potential model for delivery of antiviral therapy for patients suffering from hepatitis B in other developing countries

Hydrological impacts of climate change on the Tejo and Guadiana Rivers

International audienceA distributed daily rainfall?runoff model is applied to the Tejo and Guadiana river basins in Spain and Portugal to simulate the effects of climate change on runoff production, river flows and water resource availability with results aggregated to the monthly level. The model is calibrated, validated and then used for a series of climate change impact assessments for the period 2070?2100. Future scenarios are derived from the HadRM3H regional climate model (RCM) using two techniques: firstly a bias-corrected RCM output, with monthly mean correction factors calculated from observed rainfall records; and, secondly, a circulation-pattern-based stochastic rainfall model. Major reductions in rainfall and streamflow are projected throughout the year; these results differ from those for previous studies where winter increases are projected. Despite uncertainties in the representation of heavily managed river systems, the projected impacts are serious and pose major threats to the maintenance of bipartite water treaties between Spain and Portugal and the supply of water to urban and rural regions of Portugal

Improving bank erosion modelling at catchment scale by incorporating temporal and spatial variability

Bank erosion can contribute a significant portion of the sediment budget within temperate catchments, yet few catchment scale models include an explicit representation of bank erosion processes. Furthermore, representation is often simplistic resulting in an inability to capture realistic spatial and temporal variability in simulated bank erosion. In this study, the sediment component of the catchment scale model SHETRAN is developed to incorporate key factors influencing the spatio-temporal rate of bank erosion, due to the effects of channel sinuosity and channel bank vegetation. The model is applied to the Eden catchment, north-west England, and validated using data derived from a GIS methodology. The developed model simulates magnitudes of total catchment annual bank erosion (617 - 4063 t yr-1) within the range of observed values (211 - 4426 t yr-1). Additionally the model provides both greater inter-annual and spatial variability of bank eroded sediment generation when compared with the basic model, and indicates a potential 61% increase of bank eroded sediment as a result of temporal flood clustering. The approach developed within this study can be used within a number of distributed hydrologic models and has general applicability to temperate catchments, yet further development of model representation of bank erosion processes is required

Water use and water availability constraints to decarbonised electricity systems

Analysis of numerous low carbon electricity strategies have been shown to have very divergent water requirements, normally needed for cooling of thermoelectric power stations. Our regional river-basin scale analysis of water use for future UK electricity strategies shows that, whilst in the majority of cases freshwater use is expected to decline, pathways with high levels of carbon capture and storage (CCS) will result in significantly elevated and concentrated water demands in a few key river basins. Furthermore, these growing demands are compared to both current water availability, and our expected regional water availability under the impacts of climate change. We identify key freshwater constraints to electricity strategies with high levels of CCS and show how these risks may be mitigated with higher levels of hybrid cooling and alternative cooling water sources