Water resources around the globe are under increasing stress. Among other factors, climate change, rising food and energy demand, and improving living standards have led to a six-fold increase in global water withdrawals over the last century, with significant consequences for water quality and availability, ecosystem health, biodiversity, as well as social stability.

By advancing and linking water system models with models from sectors such as agriculture and energy, biodiversity, or sediment transport, the SOS-Water Project aims to lay the foundations for a holistic assessment framework of water resources across spatial scales. Based on five case studies of river basins in Europe and Vietnam – the Jucar River Basin in Spain, the Upper Danube region, the Danube and Rhine River deltas, and the Mekong River Basin – an interdisciplinary team of researchers from ten institutions across eight countries will develop a multidimensional SOS for water. The framework will enable the assessment of feedback loops and trade-offs between different dimensions of the water system and help address pressing global, regional, and local challenges.

In addition to going beyond state-of-the-art water systems modeling, the project will develop a comprehensive set of indicators to assess and monitor the environmental, social, and economic performance of water systems. The participating researchers will collaborate with regional and local authorities, water user representatives, non-governmental organizations, and citizens to co-create future scenarios and water management pathways. By streamlining water planning at different levels, it can be ensured that water allocation among societies, economies, and ecosystems will be economically efficient, socially fair, and resilient to shocks.

In partnership with project lead IIASA and partners such as Utrecht University and EAWAG, FutureWater is responsible for several tasks under the work package that looks to improve upon existing Earth Observation technologies for monitoring the performance of water systems. New applications will be developed and tested in the context of the SOS-Water case study basins of the Mekong and Jucar rivers.

For more information about the project visit the official website.

UNCCD is the sole legally binding international agreement linking environment and development to sustainable land management. As some of the most vulnerable ecosystems and peoples can be found in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas, UNCCD especially addresses these drylands. Productive capacities in drylands are threatened by megatrends such as climate change and land degradation, where changing precipitation and temperature potentially exacerbate processes of degradation and where degraded lands make productive systems more vulnerable to impacts of climate change.

UNCCD therefore aims to support the reorientation of productive capacities towards sustainable and resilient patterns, in order to reverse the impact of land degradation and mitigate climate change impact. To this end, UNCCD is interested in the identification of regions and crops at a particularly high risk of land degradation and climate change impact. The outcomes of this activity should support informing of national governments of risk profiles of their main cash crops and, subsequently, support identification of alternatives for value chains that are projected to become insufficiently productive in the future.

Subsequent work will link towards opportunities around other megatrends such as population changes, consumption patterns, energy and shifting geopolitical patterns present in the identification of new value chains.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) seeks to develop a new climate and disaster risk screening and assessment tool to replace the current tool in use. The next generation tool will embody lessons learned over almost ten years of ADB activities aimed at improving the climate and disaster resilience of ADB investments, including inputs from a wide range of ADB staff and consultants.

The tool will be designed to provide scientifically credible and context specific screening of projects for risks associated with climate, climate change and a range of geophysical hazards at project concept stage in order to guide subsequent activities, including the design of adaptation and resilience strategies and interventions.

The next generation tool will provide greater access to the underlying data, greater flexibility in user-initiated exploration of specific risks, greater scope for screening more spatially complex projects such as road networks and power grids. The tool will also include a module that allows a light-touch Climate Risk and Adaptation (CRA) assessment to be produced, semi-automatically. Future modules will support Paris Alignment and automated completion of applicable sections of the adaptation (BB2) assessment.and will be expanded to provide a basis for more detailed climate risk and adaptation assessments as appropriate.

The methodology behind the tool is being developed by a specialized team of experts in which FutureWater provides expertise on climate and hazard data, climate model projections, and climate risk assessments. The methodology is based on an iterative and consultative process with an external expert group, ADB staff and experts on software development and user experience design. The methodology defines the risk calculation based on hazard, exposure and vulnerability spatial and project data, and user inputs.
The tool will also become available for ADB member countries. Two pilots in Laos and Uzbekistan will make sure that the tool will align with their requirements and datasets.

FutureWater is involved in testing the methodology in these pilot countries and developing example risk screening and CRA reports.

Nature-based Solutions (NbS) can help ensure the long-term reliability of water resources. Research has shown they can – depending on circumstance – be more cost-effective and longer-lasting than grey infrastructure, while generating multiple co-benefits for carbon, biodiversity and human health. Despite the promise of NbS, however, water sector actors and their financiers usually prioritize investments in traditional grey infrastructure because they are more familiar with its costs, benefits and returns. Most of them are unfamiliar with how to develop and assess the value of NbS projects, though research shows they’re interested in tapping into their multi-faceted benefits.

The Financing Nature for Water Security project of The Nature Conservancy (TNC) aims to produce and disseminate guidance that enables water sector actors (government agencies, water utilities, grass-root NGOs) and their funders (donors, development banks and private investors) to invest in NbS-WS, at scale, by mobilizing sustainable funding and repayable financing. The project comprises of technical modules, guidance documents, supporting databases and training materials.

FutureWater has been contracted by TNC to support the development of one of the content modules assembled under the project. The module “Technical Options” will help the reader understand the water security challenge(s) they are confronted with and identify the types of NbS that could help address those challenges. In particular, Futurewater works on the creation of 12 technical factsheets to be included in an annex to the main documentation, with each factsheet highlighting the key technical aspects, benefits and risks, and economic dimensions of an NbS. In addition, an inventory of relevant NbS databases, platforms, and references is delivered.

All the technical factsheets generated within the project can be found here.

Scientists from around the world have assessed the planet’s 78 mountain glacier–based water systems and, for the first time, ranked them in order of their importance to adjacent lowland communities, as well as their vulnerability to future environmental and socioeconomic changes. These systems, known as mountain water towers, store and transport water via glaciers, snow packs, lakes and streams, thereby supplying invaluable water resources to 1.9 billion people globally—roughly a quarter of the world’s population.

The research, published in the prestigious scientific journal Nature, provides evidence that global water towers are at risk, in many cases critically, due to the threats of climate change, growing populations, mismanagement of water resources, and other geopolitical factors. Further, the authors conclude that it is essential to develop international, mountain-specific conservation and climate change adaptation policies and strategies to safeguard both ecosystems and people downstream.

Globally, the most relied-upon mountain system is the Indus water tower in Asia, according to their research. The Indus water tower—made up of vast areas of the Himalayan mountain range and covering portions of Afghanistan, China, India and Pakistan—is also one of the most vulnerable. High-ranking water tower systems on other continents are the southern Andes, the Rocky Mountains and the European Alps.

To determine the importance of these 78 water towers, researchers analyzed the various factors that determine how reliant downstream communities are upon the supplies of water from these systems. They also assessed each water tower to determine the vulnerability of the water resources, as well as the people and ecosystems that depend on them, based on predictions of future climate and socioeconomic changes.

Of the 78 global water towers identified, the following are the five most relied-upon systems by continent:

  • Asia: Indus, Tarim, Amu Darya, Syr Darya, Ganges-Brahmaputra
  • Europe: Rhône, Po, Rhine, Black Sea North Coast, Caspian Sea Coast
  • North America: Fraser, Columbia and Northwest United States, Pacific and Arctic Coast, Saskatchewan-Nelson, North America-Colorado
  • South America: South Chile, South Argentina, Negro, La Puna region, North Chile

The study, which was authored by 32 scientists from around the world, was led by Prof. Walter Immerzeel (Utrecht University) and Dr. Arthur Lutz (Utrecht University and FutureWater), longtime researchers of water and climate change in high mountain Asia.

 

In 2016, FutureWater released a new dataset: HiHydroSoil v1.2, containing global maps with a spatial resolution of 1 km of soil hydraulic properties to support hydrological modeling. Since then, the maps of the HiHydroSoil v1.2 database have been used a lot in hydrological modeling throughout the world in numerous (scientific) projects. A few examples of the use of HiHydoSoil v1.2 are shown in the report.

Important input of the HiHydroSoil database is ISRICS’ SoilGrids database: a high resolution dataset with soil properties and classes on a global scale. In May 2020, ISRIC has released the latest version (v2.0) of its Soilgrids250m product. This release has made it possible for FutureWater to update its HiHydroSoil v1.2 database with newer, more precise and with a higher resolution soil data, which resulted in the development and release of HiHydroSoil v2.0.

Soil information is the basis for all environmental studies. Since local soil maps of good quality are often not available, global soil maps with a low resolution are used. Furthermore, soil maps do not include information about soil hydraulic properties, which are of importance in, for example, hydrological modeling, erosion assessment and crop yield modelling. HiHydroSoil v2.0 can fill this data gap. HiHydroSoil v2.0 includes the following data:

  • Organic Matter Content
  • Soil Texture Class
  • Saturated Hydraulic Conductivity
  • Mualem van Genuchten parameters Alfa and N
  • Saturated Water Content
  • Residual Water Content
  • Water content at pF2, pF3 and pF4.2
  • Hydrologic Soil Group (USDA)

Download HiHydroSoil v2.0

The HiHydroSoil v2.0 database can be accessed after filling the brief request form below. A download link to the full dataset will then be provided. The HiHydroSoil v2.0 dataset is organized in two folders, one containing the original data for each of the six depths, and one with the aggregated subsoil and topsoil data. All data layers are delivered in geotiff raster format.

Another option is to access the data through Google Earth Engine. The HiHydroSoil v2.0 data is available on Google Earth Engine using the following link.

Important! To avoid lengthy download times, the data layers originally consisting of float data type were multiplied by a factor of 10,000, and subsequently converted to integer type. It is therefore required to translate the data to the proper units by multiplying with 0.0001. These steps are also described in the readme file delivered with the data.

Decisions makers responsible for climate change adaptation investments are confronted with a huge knowledge gap. On the other hand, scientists have gained much fundamental knowledge about climate impacts, but practical use of this knowledge is very limited as applied tools as well as knowledge transition is sparse. We aim to build a web-based service from which it is possible to select a country or region on a global map, calculate the current water availability from surface water and groundwater as well as current water demands from the three sectors (agriculture, industry, domestic) and to assess from this the current water shortage as well as the looming water shortage under scenarios of climate change and socio-economic development. Based on these assessments, various technological and infrastructural adaptation measures can be evaluated to assess the investments needed to bridge the water gap.

Apart from financial consequences of choices, we also aim to add, for each strategy or sets of strategies chosen: 1) indicators for the effects on the environment and downstream water availability (including downstream regions/countries); 2) indicators of the sensitivity to upstream development of water resources. For instance, building a reservoir is useless if most of the runoff is generated in a country upstream that is planning to build a reservoir for irrigation itself; 3) indicators of the socio-economic costs/benefits of different infrastructure investment options for the region or country, which will enable decision makers to choose the most efficient (mix of) infrastructure measures; 4) provide guidance by identifying financing scheme options, giving recommendations for funding, such as possibilities of PPP (public-private partnerships) 5) possibility for automatic generation of an assessment and investment report containing the analyses performed.

The tool can be used by consultants, water authorities, non-governmental and commercial investors alike to test investment strategies, but could also be used by companies as a vehicle for advertisement of water saving or crop water productivity technologies that can be evaluated on their effectiveness on the spot. The overall aim is therefore to develop and bring to market a combination of products/services that on the one hand influences existing decision making and on the other hand creates a new value chain from science to consultant to end-users.

The overall aim of the Guidance is to supporting adaptation decision making for climate-resilient investments with the main objective to scale-up ADB’s investments in climate change adaptation in Asia and the Pacific. The Good Practice Guidance on climate-resilient infrastructure design and associated training modules will help project teams to incorporate climate projections information into project design. The guideline is based both on insights gained by experts in supporting climate-resilient project development, and on state-of-the-art reviews of emerging engineering design and decision-making protocols that reflect the impacts of climate change. Sector guidance will be provided for agriculture and food security, energy, transport, urban development, and water. FutureWater takes the lead in the water sector guidance.

Training modules targeting member countries officials and ADB operational staff involved in the design of resilient infrastructure projects will be developed to facilitate the wider dissemination of, and capacity building around, the good practice guidance and enhanced availability of climate projections data. Training modules will be developed for both in person delivery at training sessions and distance learning to enable on-demand technical capacity building. The format of the in-person training sessions will be determined in consultation with the operational teams and could take a “training of trainers” approach.

The AgriSeasonal project ambitions to develop commercial seasonal climate services targeted to agricultural practices and related water management decisions. Our main goal is to advance toward a prosperous and climate-resilient agricultural sector. The team members are from France (SUEZ and TEC-Conseil), Netherlands (FutureWater), Spain (CETAQUA and FutureWater Cartagena).

During the year 2017 and 2018, a wealth of climate data and customised seasonal forecasts have been made freely available from the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S). They provide additional information on the future conditions to be expected in the next few months regarding rainfall, temperature, soil moisture, etc. Still, the complexity of these forecasts and the lack of decision variables adapted to agricultural end-users remain key barriers for adoption of the forecasts.

This project works in close cooperation with diverse group of European end-users including irrigation communities, crop and wine producers to define where, when and how these forecasts can be used to enhance decision making and lead to more climate-resilient businesses. The end-product will be a range of co-design seasonal climate services adapted to the needs of the sector.

In what follows the specific objectives and expected outcomes of the project:

1. Perform service conceptualization with end-users
The outline of the services will be upgraded following a co-design methodology with the end-users, considering what they perceived as important to have a successful service (e.g. skill, delivery-date, type of visualization of results, interconnection with other systems). This will be done by meeting with the end-users and following a framework of service conceptualization adapted to climate services using dynamic seasonal forecasts. This first critical task will ensure an appropriate product development from an initial stage, creating benefits to the customer.

2. Validate the service design
Based on the first phase, a preliminary design of the service will be made for the different customers. Mock-ups will be made and presented so our clients can better understand and provide feedback. To validate critical components of the design, laboratory testing will be done (e.g. use of COPERNICUS API to extract data, propagation of uncertainty using crop growth model, interoperability with other systems). Mock-ups and tests will be presented in various iterations to the client to receive feedback and further adapt the design. This participative design process will guarantee a suitable product development from an initial stage (suitability of the service) and provide a clear vision to the client on future developments and possibilities.

3. Produce a comprehensive business plan
A market analysis will provide information on the current situation and trends related to the services to be developed. Due to the rapid evolution of the climate services market in Europe this aspect is particularly important (e.g. change introduce by EU strategic Roadmap on Climate Service, Data Availability from Copernicus C3S…). In addition, it is essential to make the right choices for the business model to be successful. Market analysis and business model would ensure an appropriate vision on the service development stages, delivery model and insertion in partner´s portfolio. This would ensure the economic viability of the services at short and mid-term horizons.

The infrastructure deficit in Africa is vast. The World Bank estimates that $US 93 billion is needed to improve Africa’s infrastructure; nearly half of it on power supply. This amount will be much greater for new infrastructure that is (i) low carbon, (ii) climate proofed, and (iii) developmentally-sound and sustainable. Climate change is expected to have important implications of the cost, design standards and location of infrastructure projects in a number of ways:

  • As extreme events become more frequent, the cost of meeting a given reliability standard can be expected to increase;
  • Climate change could be expected to alter the optimal standard to which infrastructure should be built;
  • Climate change can be expected to alter the pattern of demand for infrastructure;
  • Climate change could be expected to affect the optimal choice of infrastructure technologies;
  • Since infrastructure basically increases the inter-connectedness of places, it provides a natural way of diversifying climate risk.

Since what climate will actually occur will remain largely uncertain in the foreseeable future, the challenge is to develop decision making frameworks capable of leading to investment decisions that are “desirable” under a wide range of possible climate outcomes. FutureWater is providing the foundation for the development of these frameworks. This involves conducting a rapid stock-taking exercise to ensure that there is a thorough understanding of the actors, on-going activities and available models and datasets upon which the new work will build and developing a conceptual framework for the subsequent analysis.