Across Europe, water is becoming an increasingly limited resource. Rising temperatures, longer low-flow periods and more frequent flash floods are putting tension on many aspects on our lives; from hygiene and public health over socioeconomical topics such as agriculture, to leisure activities like fishing or swimming. Especially southern Europe is affected during summer. Competition for water is already happening, and is expected to worsen in the coming years.
To help anticipate and manage these issues, our partners from EDF have developed a methodological framework to assess the satisfaction of future water use under different climate change scenarios, and applied it to our demonstration site Saut-Mortier in the Ain Valley, France. “Water use” in this case describes an ecosystem service consumed in a defined area over a given period. These services have been divided into four categories:
- Supply services (food, drinking water, … .)
- Regulatory services (erosion control, habitat for aquatic life, … .)
- Support services (any necessary to produce other services)
- Cultural services (fulfil aesthetic, symbolic, and recreational values)
The matrix developed by our partners assesses the compatibility of different water use cases, depending on which category they fall into. This will give us a better overview of where water is needed most, and where events such as low-flow periods or flash floods pose the highest risk. Hydropower operations can help alleviate the problem – once we know where to act.
The first application of the matrix will take place on the at the Saut-Mortier demonstration site on the Ain River. Using the digital twin developed in Work Package 2, our partners will test future hydro-thermal scenarios under different climate change conditions, and compare them with usage satisfaction criteria based on the developed matrix. In following steps, the matrix will be applied to other demonstration sites as well (e.g. on the Rhône River), and results will be linked to social benefits and stakeholders’ perceptions.
The full deliverable is available right here in our knowledge hub!