Suchergebnisse

AbstractResilient water supplies in England need to be secured in the face of challenges of population growth, climate change and environmental sustainability. We propose a blueprint for water resources planning that uses system simulation modelling to estimate the frequency, duration and severity of water shortages at present and in the context of future plans and scenarios. We use multiobjective optimisation tools to explore trade‐offs between these risk metrics and cost of alternative plans, and we use sensitivity analysis to identify plans that robustly achieve targets for tolerable risk, alongside other performance objectives. The results of a case study in the Thames basin demonstrate that the proposed methodology is feasible given commonly available data sets and models. The proposed method provides evidence with which to develop water resource management plans that demonstrably balance the risks of water shortages, costs to water users and environmental constraints in an uncertain future.

The need to assess major infrastructure performance under a changing climate is widely recognized yet rarely practiced, particularly in rapidly growing African economies. Here, we consider high-stakes investments across the water, energy, and food sectors for two major river basins in a climate transition zone in Africa. We integrate detailed interpretation of observed and modeled climate-system behavior with hydrological modeling and decision-relevant performance metrics. For the Rufiji River in Tanzania, projected risks for the mid-21 st century are similar to those of the present day, but for the Lake Malawi-Shire River, future risk exceeds that experienced during the 20 th century. In both basins a repeat of an early-20 th century multi-year drought would challenge the viability of proposed infrastructure. A long view, which emphasizes past and future changes in variability, set within a broader context of climate-information interpretation and decision making, is crucial for screening the risk to infrastructure.