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Geomatics Scientists of the Jena University (Germany) coordinating new EU-project on Water Economy
(Jena) Not only the polar caps but also glaciers in alpine mountain regions melt because of global warming, and thus the water content retained by them declines. "This decline is not just a local problem, it is evident in almost any alpine mountain regions all over the world" Prof. Dr. Wolfgang-Albert Flügel of the Jena University points out. "In the Himalaya mountains glacier retreat amounts to about 30 %" adds a team member of Flügel, Dr. Klaus Bongartz. The reduction of water volumes stored during the winter in glaciers and snow packs and later released in summer likely will have impacts on regional economies. Therefore water managers, irrigation farmers in India or hydropower managers in Switzerland have to account for such challenges, and have to adapt and compensate for consequent changes of the hydrological systems dynamics, as they both depend on the discharge volumes and the spatial and temporal distribution of river runoff.
In order to predict impacts of likely Global Change on river basin dynamics it is necessary to collect data and geographic informations, and to develop a modelling approaches that reflect the present hydrologic process interaction and is able to predict in river disharge and hydrograph distribution. Such a model is controlled by numerous, interactive parameters, and considers hydrological scenarios thus offering decision-making-support for an adaptive integrated water resources management (IWRM).
A respective toolset, an integrated water resources managment system (IWRMS), is now being developed by an international team of 17 partners from science and economy, co-ordinated by Prof. Flügel and assisted by Dr. Bongartz. The European Union will provide funds up to 2.9 million Euro for the next three years to support this research project, which out of 69 submitted proposals for this environmental/ecological program all was evaluated with the highest score.
Flügel and his partners have been planning the project for two years, and not only did they have to prove their scientific competence, but also team oriented skills. The project "Brahmatwinn" is carried out in the two twinning basins of the Upper Danube River Basin (UDBR) and the Upper Brahmaputra River Basin (UBRB) and the IWRMS toolset will be tested in both of them.
The Brahmaputra has tributaries in China, India, Nepal and Bhutan, and in the past was subject to IWRM related disputes. Due to his international professional carreer Flügel was able to attract scientists as well as representatives of important international organisations and prospective users from ten different countries as partners for this project. "We will make it a success!" clearly demonstrates his attitude to elaborate together with the international consortium team on a challenging pioneering research item that will certainly attract attention internationally because of its innovate character and integrated structure. Flügel therefore understands the project as a cooperative challenge, and he is sure that "Asians as well as Europeans will profit from 'Brahmatwinn' to the same extend", since changes in Climate Change on river basin drainage dynamics will effect industrialized nations as well as nations who's economy is based on agriculture.
In the course of three years, necessary data has to be collected and purchased, and the information will be evaluated jointly be natural and socio-economic scientists, engineers and water lawyers. That is why already in September the first field study is scheduled in the Brahmaputra region. After analysis, the information has to be implemented in a database, climatic predictions will have to be generated, and hydrological process runoff models will have to be applied. Finally, "what-if"-scenarios will be designed, which will allow the decision makers to visualize the interactive system parameters. All of these tasks have to be combined in a prototype IWRMS toolset, which will be implemented and applied by stakeholders and practitioners in Asia and Europe. That is why capacity building jointly done by geographers, meteorologists, engineers, social scientists, ecologists, and laywers, is a major focus of the demonstration activities of BRAHMATWINN. So far, individual components of the system are already existing, for example in Munich, Venice, and Jena, which will have to be integrated into the IWRMS prototype, as Flügel describes one task of the Jena team. "We don't offer readly available solutions, but a system to find solutions for an adaptive integrated water resources management on a basin level" proclaims the scientist from the Jena University.
Contact:
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang-Albert Flügel
Institut für Geographie der Universität Jena
Löbdergraben 32, 07743 Jena
Tel.: ++49 (0)3641 948850
E-Mail: c5wafl@uni-jena.de
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang-Albert Flügel
Photo: Peter Scheere/FSU
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Geowissenschaften, Informationstechnik, Wirtschaft
überregional
Forschungsprojekte
Englisch
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