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The Urema River basin is the major sub catchment of the Pungue River basin situated in Central Mozambique. The Urema River basin controls the ecosystem of the Lake Urema, which with its extended flood plains forms a major feature of the Gorongosa National Park. The Urema River influences the flood and low water levels of the Pungue River, which is the main source of potable water of Beira — the second largest city of Mozambique. The area of the Urema river basin is densely populated and intensively used for subsistence agriculture, timber production, widely spread gold mining, tourism and nature conservation.

A university project aiming at developing a model of the groundwater dynamics and assessing groundwater qualities of the Urema River basin was recently initiated. Up to now very few groundwater investigations were conducted in Mozambique. Current database management of groundwater data is poorly developed. Data are kept in tabular formats and serve mainly for record keeping purposes. Confronted with these challenges the presentation demonstrates the project’s approaches of linking the various database sources to achieve a large to medium scale concept of the hydrodynamics of the Urema River basin.

Based on current project findings the improvement of the resolution of digital data from current small to larger scales is necessary to enhance information contents. Further geochronological investigations are required to understand the geological evolution of the area and to update the stratigraphic order of geological formations. In future a groundwater-monitoring network needs to be established to capture long-term and baseline data.

Several recent studies warn that under ‘Business-as-Usual’ a water crisis is impending, suggesting that appropriate actions need to be taken on the water supply and demand side. While many measures to alleviate water scarcity are within the water sector, it is increasingly recognized that many drivers, policies and institutions outside the water sector have large and real implications on how water is being allocated and used. Important drivers for water use include population and income growth, urbanization, trade and other macroeconomic policies, environmental regulations and climate policy. While some of these processes and trends, especially those at global level, may prove difficult to influence directly, it is important to understand their linkages with water issues to analyze the relative impact of various policies in the agricultural and water sectors on water and food security.

The strong linkages between economic trends, agricultural policies and water use call for an integrated and multidisciplinary modelling approach. The WATERSIM model, developed by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) is a suitable tool to explore the impacts of water and food related policies on global and regional water demand and supply, food production and the environment. This paper introduces the WATERSIM model and, using some preliminary results, illustrates the importance of global economic trends on food and water outcomes.

Global research programs related to river basin water resources have at least two things in common: (1) they assess and model hydrological process dynamics on a macro scale and (2) research partners jointly working on such research issues are internationally distributed in different institutions. These prerequisites require a sophisticated and scale bridging data assessment and information management comprising geo-referenced distributed data components, measured or simulated time series, and socio-economic information. Networking such international research structures by means of the internet pose new challenges to Geoinformatics in respect to the design of a Web based distributed database system, metadata and GIS-information management, geo-referenced data query and visualization. Such data management must include powerful and efficient data exchanging software tools and information sharing policies to ensure that decision making can jointly be done on the base of the best information available. Geoinformation includes raster and vector GIS coverages, measured process time series data and associated metadata. Furthermore there are needs to integrate multidisciplinary information and research knowledge related to IWRM comprising information obtained by remote sensing, GIS analysis, modeling, and socio-economic assessments for vulnerability and mitigation. Addressing these challenges and to cope with such data organization and management tasks the Adaptive Integrated Data Information System (AIDIS) has been developed by the DGHM at the FSU-Jena. It is based on open source software (OSS) and a multi tier class hierarchy structure. AIDIS has implemented the full ISO 19115 metadata model, and enhances its structure if required e.g. for time series or documents. A first prototype was developed for the Challenge Program “Water and Food” (CPWF) of the CGIAR and has been improved and refined for the Tisza River basin within the “Tisza River” EU-project comprising at present about one hundred GIS maps and more than 5000 measured and simulated time series.

Tropical deforestation has many consequences, amongst which alteration of the hydrological cycle and loss of habitat and biodiversity are the focus of much public interest and scientific research. Here we examine the potential biodiversity and hydrological impacts of an extreme deforestation scenario — the loss of all tropical forest areas currently identified by the World Wildlife Fund as being threatened. Existing tropical forest areas are first classified according to two categories of biological distinctiveness — high and low — using indicators developed by the WWF. We apply the tropical deforestation scenario to a macroscale hydrologic model, keeping track of the share of change in basin runoff that originates from the deforestation of areas of high versus low biological distinctiveness and where that change could impact human populations. Of particular interest are those basins where loss of the most threatened tropical forest areas would give rise to significant biodiversity loss to potentially large hydrological impacts. In such cases it is conceivable that biodiversity conservation could “free-ride” on the concerns of resident populations to maintain the forests for the purpose of minimizing hydrological change. Where such an outcome seems likely, biodiversity conservation efforts might be better targeted elsewhere, perhaps to basins where the loss of forest areas with high biological distinctiveness would have less population impacts, hence requiring an alliance between biological and hydrological interests to gain sufficient social and financial support for conservation.

Water shortages and related environmental degradation in North China are major issues facing the country. As runoff from the mountainous parts of the region steadily decrease and water resources become overcommitted, serious water and environmental problems have resulted. These include drying-up of rivers, decline in groundwater levels, degradation of lakes and wetlands, and water pollution. Thus, 4000 km of the lower reaches of the Hai River — some 40% of its length — has experienced zero flows and, as result, parts of this river have become an ephemeral stream. The area of wetland within the Basin has decreased from 10,000 km at the beginning of 1950s to 1,000 km at present. Over-extraction of groundwater occurs beneath 70% of the North China Plain, with the total groundwater over-extraction estimated at 90 billion m. Thus, problems of water shortage and related environmental issues in North China have become the most significant limiting factors affecting sustainable development in this important region of China.

This paper addresses the water security issues facing North China in the 21st Century using the Hai River basin as an example. We describe hydrologic cycles under changing environments, water-saving agriculture, assessment of water resource security, and efforts towards achieving integrated catchment management.

Global change fundamentally changes the nature of water-related problems. We will illustrate this by showing how perceptions of the water-problems in the Netherlands have shifted in the past four decades. The nature of water-related problems changed from a technical problem to a so-called ‘persistent’ problem, characterized by plurality, uncertainty and complexity. Although integrated water resource management (IWRM) has been advocated to cope with this type of problem, the complexity of the transition process towards such a water management regime is often underestimated. Therefore, transition management is needed in the water sector. Transition management theory is presented and applied to the Dutch case. Transition management strategies are suggested that would reinforce this transition. Comparison between the European Water Framework Directive (WFD) and transition management indicates that the Common Implementation Strategy (CIS) in its current form is not sufficiently stimulating an innovation climate.

Following some definitions of IWRM within a context of integrated catchment management, and a summary of the major goals and strategies as well as scale considerations in IWRM, this paper highlights some differences between IWRM in Lesser Developed Countries (LDCs), i.e. the so-called “South”, and Developed Countries (DCs), i.e. the socalled “North”, by outlining characteristics of DCs and LDCs which shape their respective needs in IWRM. Thereafter inherent problems in regard to IWRM in LDCs are identified. This is followed by examples from four case studies in southern African catchments which focus on some of the uniquenesses of IWRM issues in LDCs which, in the author’s experiences, are often forgotten by theorists and practitioners from the “North”, . that

In each case study simulation modelling has been used as a tool in IWRM. A concluding section therefore focuses on some selected problems which have been identified by the author in regard to hydrological modelling in LDCs. These revolve around issues of governance, human resources and practicalities.

The Volta River Basin occupies over 400,000 km within the sub-humid to semi-arid West African savanna zone. The basin is shared by six riparian nations, among which Ghana (40% of basin area) and Burkina Faso (43%) are the most important in terms of population, water use and economic activity. Basin precipitation averages around 1,000mm per year, with a steep south to north gradient, and less than 10% becomes usable as runoff due to high evaporation rates. Historically, rainfall is erratic and unreliable, a situation likely to be exacerbated as a consequence of global climate change. Basin inhabitants are largely rural and poor, with per capita incomes falling well below Sub-Saharan African standards, and only 37% (Burkina Faso) to 62% (Ghana) have access to improved sources of drinking water. Basin population is expanding by over 2.5% annually, effectively doubling every 28 years. Irrigation, the dominant consumptive use of water in the northern and central basin, competes directly with hydro-power generation in the south for available water resources, and the demand for water to serve these and other uses is projected to increase dramatically over the next two decades.

There is an emerging consensus in the scientific community that climate change has the potential to significantly alter prevailing hydrologic patterns in California over the course of the 21st Century. This is of profound importance for a system where large investments have been made in hydraulic infrastructure that has been designed and is operated to harmonize dramatic temporal and spatial water supply and water demand variability. Recent work by the authors led to the creation of an integrated hydrology/water management climate change impact assessment framework that can be used to identify tradeoffs between important ecosystem services provided by the California water system associated with future climate change and to evaluate possible adaptation strategies. In spite of the potential impact of climate change, and the availability of a tool for investigating its dimensions, actual water management decision-making processes in California have yet to fully integrate climate change analysis into their planning dialogues. This paper presents an overview of decision-making processes ranked based on the application of a 3S: Sensitivity, Significance, and Stakeholder support, standard, which demonstrates that while climate change is a crucial factor in virtually all water-related decision making in California, it has not typically been considered, at least in any analytical sense. The three highest ranked processes are described in more detail, in particular the role that the new analytical framework could play in arriving at more resilient water management decisions. The authors will engage with stakeholders in these three processes, in hope of moving climate change research from the academic to the policy making arena.

The European Water Framework Directive provides a new impetus to manage river catchments in more integrated, joined-up ways. This article looks at the role of stakeholders in integrated catchment management. Taking the work of the Environment Agency as a case study, the article begins by looking at recent successes at managing water related issues and the role of stakeholders in this. It then looks at ways in which water environments continue to be vulnerable, particularly to diffuse pollution, some development practices and climatic changes. It argues for the need for more integrated management responses, characterised by collaborative and inter-disciplinary learning to manage the interdependencies, complexities and uncertainties of catchments as integrated systems. This will require both the strengthening and streamlining of current approaches to stakeholder engagement, as well as the development of new approaches. The article concludes by outlining recent work by the Environment Agency to shape these new arrangements for stakeholder engagement, and by reflecting on the lessons learned from this.