Integrated Drought Management Research needs and vision for

follow-up programme

Lučka Kajfež Bogataj

4th Workshop

Integrated Drought Management Programme in Central and Eastern Europe

Bucharest 21 & 22 April 2015

Introduction facts

• World Economic Forum: drought across the globe costs 6 to 8 billion dollars a year from losses in agriculture and related businesses.

• Very dry areas across the globe have doubled in extent since the 1970s. A long-term drying trend persists in Africa, East and South Asia, eastern Australia, southern Europe, Brasil etc.

• Further climate change will make things even worse.

Projected changes in the length of dry spell (in days) from 1971-2000 to 2071–2100 for the RCP8.5 scenario based on the ensemble mean of different regional climate models nested in different general circulation models

Projected changes in annual (left) and summer (right) precipitation (%) in the period 2071-2100 compared to the baseline period 1971-2000 for the forcing scenario RCP 8.5. Model simulations are based on the multi-model ensemble average of RCM simulations from the EURO-CORDEX initiative.

Change of mean annual streamflow for a global mean temperature rise of 2°C above 1980–2010 (IPCC, 2014)

Climate change impact (= drought impact) on wheat yield

Adaptationprocessesneeded

Integrated Drought Management Research

General water research questions related to drought in Europe today

1. Maintaining ecosystem (including agroecosystem) sustainability

2. Developing safe water systems for the citizens

3. Promoting competitiveness in the water industry

4. Implementing a water-wise bio-based economy

Water in EU research programs

Call – Water InnovationBoosting its value for Europe

Are 4 key principles (WMO/GWP, 2011) stil valide?

• Shift the focus from reactive to proactive and programmatic measures through mitigation, vulnerability reduction and preparedness;

• Integrate vertical planning and decision making processes at regional, national and community levels into a framework of horizontally integrated sectors and disciplines (such as water, agriculture, ecosystems and energy);

• Promote the evolution of a knowledge base and establish mechanisms for sharing it with stakeholders across sectors at all levels

• Build capacity of various stakeholders at different levels.

What problems we want to solve?

• Lack of a national and regional drought policy framework;

• lack of coordination between institutions that provide different types of drought products

• lack of social indicators to form part of a comprehensive early warning system;

• lack of efforts in strengthening, testing and evaluating EWS across spatial and temporal scales

• Quality of information available to decision-makers at all levels;

• To know factors that influence whether or not information will be used

• Limited governance structures that facilitate better decisionmaking practice including adapting the decision-support systems to the different levels of decision makers.

Future research - 3 directions:

• Drought as a natural hazard, including climate change drivers, drought processes and occurrences;

• Environmental and socio-economic impacts; and

• Vulnerabilities, risks and policy responses, including the further development of drought management plans in support of European and other international policies+ BETTER COMUNICATION

Provide reliable climatic forecasts

– Drought predictability: subseasonal / seasonal/decadal / climatic

– Drought characteristics are still not well known• Sporadic nature of extremes

• Limited availability of long time observation series.

– Increased global reanalyses: research on past extreme events.

– Improve climate models to assess likelihood and magnitudes of extreme events under climate change.

– Provide more user‐oriented measures of extreme events

Drought and climate change

– Improving tools for drought decision‐making under climate change

• Categorising and communicating risks and uncertainties

• Integrating global climate change analysis and assessment

• Nesting scenarios at different levels

• Linking scenarios and decision tools

Drought cooperation and communication are needed more than ever

– Promote and develop panEuropean:• Drought-oriented climate modelling collaboration environment• collaboration environment for long‐term drought monitoring and

analysis

– Communication of drought climate knowledge to end‐users:• Understanding user needs

– Identifying‘drought sensitivities’ associated with decision‐makers activities

– Tools/methods to communicate climatic information on drought– Communication of uncertainties too!

• Interfacing drought climate research and its application– Improving the interface between climate and drought impacts research

Research needs on drought impacts:

• Environmental impacts (Effect on habitats and protected natural areas, preventingproduction of ecosystem services )

• Drought effects on water quality for environmental uses (Urban, industrial and agricultural water pollution, particularattention to emerging pollutants)

In the context of climate change, meeting critical emergent needs require that:

• Drought should be seen as risks to investments in “capitals” including human capital (Money talks lauder...).

• Faster rates of climate change drive surprises and rapid transitions in which early warnings will be increasingly critical;

• there is the ongoing need to take on the institutional aspects of “capacity” and “coordination” at national and local levels much more directly than is being done. Sustained collaborative framework among research, monitoring and decision-making/management is needed

• Development, support, and training of professionals and policy entrepreneurs who view the role of linking science, policy and practices as a core goal over the long term.