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23 September 2015, Nieuwegein (NL) • The International Association of Hydrogeologists (IAH) Netherlands’ Chapter, the Netherlands Hydrological Society (NHV) and VVM, together with KWR Water, Deltares and IHP Belgium, are organizing a symposium on The Value of Groundwater (in Dutch). Very interesting speakers and free registration for members!
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The International Journal of Climate Change Strategies and Management publishes papers on scholarly research, projects and other initiatives dealing with policy-making on climate change, and methodological approaches to cope with the problems deriving from climate change. Due consideration is given to environmental, economic, social and political aspects and especially the links and leverages that can be attained by this holistic approach. Authors are invited to submit papers.
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Managing Water Resources under Climate Uncertainty: Examples from Asia, Europe, Latin America, and Australia – a new book by Sangam Shrestha, A.K. Anal, P.A. Salam and Michael van der Valk (eds) – has just been published by Springer. The book describes the impacts of climate change on the water cycle in Asia and Europe, and compares options for adaptation while looking at different regions that each have their own particularities. The book contains examples from the Mediterranean, Central Highlands of Vietnam, the Citarum River Basin (Indonesia), Nam Ou River Basin (Lao), Koshi River Basin, Chaliyar River Basin (Kerala, India), Mekong tributaries (including Can Tho, Sesan and Sre Pork Basin), Cambodia, Bhutan, South-Eastern Indian coast, Leh (Northwestern Himalaya, India), Nepal (Disaster Risk Reduction), Adelaide (Australia), Mexico, Chindwin River (Myanmar), Brahmaputra River. With a foreword by Michel Jarraud (Secretary-General of WMO and Chair of UN-Water) and Blanca Jiménez (Director, Division of Water Sciences, UNESCO).
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Flood early warning systems provide a potentially highly effective flood risk reduction measure. The effectiveness of early warning, however, is affected by forecasting uncertainty: the impossibility of knowing, in advance, the exact future state of hydrological systems. Early warning systems benefit from estimation of predictive uncertainties, i.e. by providing probabilistic forecasts. On 1 April 2015 Jan Verkade defended his PhD thesis «Estimating real-time predictive hydrological uncertainty». The dissertation describes research in estimating the value of probabilistic forecasts as well as in skill improvement of estimates of predictive uncertainty.
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The vocabulary and discourse of water resource management have expanded vastly in recent years to include an array of new concepts and terminology, such as water security, water productivity, virtual water and water governance. While the new conceptual lenses may generate insights that improve responses to the world's water challenges, their practical use is often encumbered by ambiguity and confusion.
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The 2015 edition of the United Nations World Water Development Report, «Water for a Sustainable World», was launched on World Water Day, 20 March 2015. On kind invitation by the Government of France (CNRS), on behalve of the European Union, some of the authors were in Paris that day. On the occassion of World Water Day and on behalf of the authors, Michael van der Valk presented the book «Managing Water Resources under Climate Uncertainty» at UNESCO’s headquarters to the director of the Division of Water Sciences and the Secretary of UNESCO’s International Hydrololgical Programme (IHP), Ms Blanca Jiménez Cisneros, who also wrote the foreword. Following this small ceremony the World Water Development Report was presented to the authors the following day at the Parisian Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie, attended by representatives of the European Commission.
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The presentations of the international conference on droughts and low flows, including groundwater, held in October 2014 in Maastricht (NL), are now available. The successful meeting was attended by almost 100 scientists and policy-makers, from 5 continents, with an overall very positive evaluation by the participants!
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UNESCO’s International Hydrological Programme (IHP) is celebrating its 50th anniversary with events in Korea. An important pillar of IHP is related to groundwater. As one-third of humanity is totally dependent on groundwater for their daily needs and 98% of the Planet Earth’s easily accessible freshwater is found in aquifers, UNESCO-IHP has devoted huge efforts to raise attention on this vital ‘hidden’ resource and to address the challenges of its governance and sustainable management.
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Overuse of surface water and an increasing reliance on nonrenewable groundwater resources have been reported over various regions of the world, casting significant doubt on the sustainable water supply and food production met by irrigation. To assess the limitations of global water resources, numerous indicators have been developed, but they rarely consider nonrenewable water use. In addition, surface water over-abstraction is rarely assessed in the context of human and environmental water needs. Yoshihide Wada and Marc Bierkens performed a transient assessment of global water use over the historical period 1960–2010 as well as the future projections of 2011–2099, using a newly developed indicator: the blue water sustainability index (BlWSI).
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