Aiding modeling and assessment projects

One of the goals of the Water Futures and Solutions (WFaS) initiative is to establish a knowledge hub for systems analytic approaches to water challenges. To facilitate this, the program has been working closely with the Intersectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISI-MIP) to help develop climate-impact models that fully incorporate water issues.

© Meryll | Dreamstime

© Meryll | Dreamstime

The WFaS initiative expands the work of the World Water Scenarios Project of UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s World Water Assessment Programme. It also builds on the modeling efforts of the EU projects Water and Global Change and Water Scenarios for Europe and Neighbouring States as well as ISI-MIP.

Engaging with ISI-MIP in particular, which aims to provide cross-sectoral global impact assessments based on the Representative Concentration Pathways and Shared Socioeconomic Pathways, forms an essential part of the WFaS initiative.

In March 2015, WAT co-organized the ISI-MIP cross-sectoral workshop along with the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Science. This event brought together more than 200 global and regional climate impact modelers, from a diverse range of impacted sectors, including agriculture, water, natural vegetation, forestry, biodiversity, marine ecosystems, energy, and economic modeling. It offered an opportunity to discuss the first results from of the latest simulation phase, with a focus on the impacts of extreme weather and climate events, and the evaluation of model performance. Furthermore, it provided the opportunity to discuss the grand challenges of climate-impact research, with a view to understanding how ISI-MIP can contribute to meeting these challenges.

References

[1] Frieler K, Levermann A, Elliott J, Heinke J, Arneth A, Bierkens MFP, Ciais P, Clark DB, et al. (2015). A framework for the cross-sectoral integration of multi-model impact projections: land use decisions under climate impacts uncertainties. Earth Syst. Dynam., 6: 447-460.

[2] Huber V, Schellnhuber HJ, Arnell NW, Frieler K, Friend AD, Gerten D, Haddeland I, Kabat P, et al. (2014). Climate impacts research: Beyond patchwork. Earth Syst. Dynam., 5: 399-408.

[3] Schewe J, Heinke J, Gerten D, Haddeland I, Arnell NW, Frieler K, Piontek F, Warszawski L, Kabat P Multimodel assessment of water scarcity under climate change. PNAS, 111(9):3245-3250.


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Last edited: 04 March 2016

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