Water Resource Futures Under Climate Change - Framing Uncertainty Within the Context of Vulnerability to Identify Risk
Howard S. Wheater and Ali Nazemi, University of Saskatchewan, Centre for Hydrology and Global Institute for Water Security, Saskatoon, SK, Canada
Contact First Author: Howard S. Wheater; howard.wheater@usask.ca
Previously Published Material: Mention can be found in the following three publications: (1) Nazemi, A. and H. S. Wheater (2014), Assessing the vulnerability of water supply to changing streamflow conditions, Eos Transactions of American Geophysical Union, 95(32), 288, doi: 10.1002/2014EOS320007. (2) Nazemi, A. and H. S. Wheater (2014), How can the uncertainty in the natural inflow regime propagate into the assessment of water resource systems? Advances in Water Resources, 63, 131-142, doi: 10.1016/j.advwatres.2013.11.009. (3) Nazemi, A., H. S. Wheater, K. P. Chun, and A. Elshorbagy (2013), A stochastic reconstruction framework for analysis of water resource system vulnerability to climate-induced changes in river flow regime, Water Resources Research, 49, doi:10.1029/2012WR012755.
English Abstract:
Estimation of potential impacts of climate change on water resources is of high societal importance, but conventional scenario-based estimation is subject to a cascade of models, each with high uncertainty. Uncertain socio-economic scenarios are used to drive uncertain global climate models, which are then downscaled to provide uncertain climate outputs at the scales of relevance for uncertain hydrological models, which can then be input to uncertain water resource systems models. Communication of the resulting overall uncertainty to water managers and other stakeholders is challenging; it is not unusual for not only the magnitude but also the sign of change in future resources to be uncertain. We present an alternative, and complementary, approach to the communication of risk. Analysis of the vulnerability of water resource systems to potential change is illustrated for a relatively complex, fully allocated water resource system in Alberta, Canada. Using a simple two-dimensional representation of potential changes in hydrology, water resource system vulnerability can be mapped onto a two-dimensional space, which clearly illustrates potential scenarios of concern. Conventional scenario-based estimates can be superimposed on the vulnerability map, to provide important insight into potential areas of future risk of system failure.
