Managing Water for the City of the Future
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Useful Links: SWURVE
SWURVE – Sustainable Water: Uncertainty, Risk and Vulnerability in Europe
Coordinator: Mr. Christopher Kilsby, University of Newcastle Upon Tyne (UK) – Water Resource Systems Research Laboratory, Department Of Civil Engineering
Timeframe: 01/12/2000 – 30/11/2003
Problems to be solved:
Many attempts have been made to assess the impacts of changes and variability in climate on crucial hydrologic and hydraulic systems such as those used for flood protection, municipal and agricultural water supply and urban drainage. Such systems can be extremely vulnerable to predicted climate changes, but two major problems have affected the assessment of their vulnerability, and planning of how it can be mitigated or avoided.
- There is great uncertainty inherent in future climate scenarios. This arises from ta number of sources, including prediction of greenhouse gas emissions, imperfect climate models and incomplete understanding of how global climate sensitivity relates to regional and local climates. Dealing with this uncertainty requires consideration of a whole range of possible future scenarios rather than a "best guess" or arbitrarily selected set of scenarios.
- The risk of failure of various systems and subsequent vulnerability, is difficult to quantify, as it may depend on the occurrence of extreme events, with singly, in sequence or in combination with other events. Since extreme events by definition occur infrequently, they are therefore difficult to characterise. Quantifying this risk therefore also calls for a probabilistic framework using large ranges or long time series of hydro-meteorological scenarios and possible consequences, demanding the development of novel statistical methodologies.
Website: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/swurve/