Development of a Harmonized Water Balance Modelling System for the Danube River Basin (Danube Water Balance)

Danube Water Balance

The Danube Water Balance project aims to improve the effectiveness of joint, transboundary, and cross-sectoral water management in the Danube River Basin (DRB) to address water quantity issues. The project will deliver a basin-wide water balance model for surface and groundwater, tested in transboundary sub-basins, along with the application of climate scenarios. It will foster improving data management and capacity building by preparing a common training material and establishing an expert hub. 

Project description 

The extreme and climate change impacts cause significant water balance issues in the Danube River Basin (DRB), already posing major challenges also for the environment, the economy and the whole society. Water management in the DRB is characterized by scattered data availability and various national calculation methods, ultimately leading to country-scale or sub-regional mosaics about the water balance. A jointly developed data management and water balance model is needed to address the basin's transnational water quantity challenges. The Danube Water Balance project aims to overcome this situation and contribute to sustainable, integrated transnational water management in the DRB 

Objectives

The overall objective of the project is to develop a harmonized water balance modeling system in the DRB

Main outputs

1. Improved data management for present and future water balance calculations. This will consist of (i) a data repository for all input and output data of the model, (ii) a set of tools supporting input data collection, validation, conversion and result visualization and interpretation and (iii) a new data management strategy providing a sound basis for data-related activities of future water balance and water management modeling. Both the data 

repository and the tools will be open access; therefore, the list of beneficiaries extends from water experts using the developed model to experts from other water-related fields to decision makers willing to understand the main characteristics of the DRB as a hydrological system. 

2. CWatM - The state-of-the-art, open-source water balance model for the DRB, that allows the quantification of water balance components for the entire basin and for selected areas of interest. The model will be calibrated and validated against measured data collected and processed in accordance with jointly defined data management protocols, ensuring the common acceptance of model results. The foreseen afterlife of the water balance model is a fully functional basin-wide water management model, enabling more reasonable, sustainable, and adaptive water management in the long run. 

3. Elaborated water balance scenarios for 4 selected transboundary sub-basins, namely Morava (CZ, SK & AT), Tisa (HU, SK, RO, RS & UA), Upper Sava (SI & HR), and Drina (RS & BA). This key action within the project will be the cornerstone of future cooperation by providing a good exercise for our international experts to test and enhance the Danube River Basin Water Balance model (DRBWBM) and the founded common data repository. 

4. Improved stakeholder insight into transboundary water balance methodology: strong emphasis will be put on sectoral stakeholder involvement and capacity building in the project. Besides the essential technical modeling steps, it is planned that several trainings will be carried out and an expert hub will be established that will consist of modeling experts, water managers, and other professionals from water-related sectors.  

IIASA Models used