The broad objectives of the proposal are: a) to undertake, through catchment case studies, reviews of the pressures facing water resources and water management in Europe, over the medium to long term, and their relative importance. These studies will involve simulation of future hydrological and water resources characteristics in the study catchments, focusing in the implications of uncertainty in these future pressures b) to identify a range of potentially appropriate water management strategies and evaluation procedures, suiting different institutional environments, which can cope with climate change and other pressures and c) to present guidelines to water managers (at utility, national and European scale) on the assessment of medium and long-term strategies for water management in the context of uncertain climate change
The project will evaluate and develop efficient and cost-effective ways of coping with climate change in water management in Europe. It is not concerned specifically with the development of management tools (such as software packages), but with how water resources should be managed.