GC13F-0724:
Building Resilience to Drought Impacts on Water Supplies: a Comparison of Approaches in Europe, the USA, and Australia
Monday, 15 December 2014
Kerstin Stahl1, Jamie Hannaford2, Mark Svoboda3, Cody L Knutson3, Sophie Bachmair1, Mike C Acreman2, Neville D Crossman4, Ian C Overton4, Matthew Colloff5 and Kevin Collins6, (1)University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany, (2)Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Wallingford, United Kingdom, (3)National Drought Mitigation Center, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, United States, (4)CSIRO Land and Water Flagship, Adelaide, Australia, (5)CSIRO Canberra, Canberra, Australia, (6)The Open University, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom
Abstract:
Drought events pose a substantial threat to water security in almost every climate zone and water use sector. Many countries have had difficulty maintaining water supplies and mitigating user conflicts during recent droughts, for example during Australia’s Millennium Drought (1998-2010) and the recent droughts in the USA (2012), Europe (early 2000s) and UK (2011/12). With climate projections suggesting that droughts will intensify in many regions, the magnitude of this threat is likely to increase and thus vulnerability of society to drought must be reduced through better preparedness. The Belmont Forum project DrIVER (Drought impacts: Vulnerability thresholds in monitoring and Early-warning Research) aims to contribute to better preparedness by improving links between natural (hydrometeorological) drought characterisation and environmental and socio-economic impacts. Better integration of drought characterisation and impacts are expected to lead to enhanced drought monitoring and early-warning systems and other risk management strategies. We present results from a comparison of the monitoring and early-warning capacity and past drought impacts in case studies on three continents, North America, Europe and Australia. All have high institutional capacity but are set within very different hydroclimatic conditions with differing drought vulnerabilities and management frameworks.
