Search

[Departement_IRSTEA]RE [TR1_IRSTEA]GES / USAGES; In this report the factual analysis is compared with the stakeholder perceptions for different test sites. Based on these findings the following general conclusions could be drawn. To obtain a good insight in the bio-geophysical system as well as the socio-economic setting often data were inadequate. This made it difficult to assess the water stress. It also stresses the need for a good monitoring network. A number of sites indicated that the distribution of the amount of water over the different sectors is the main problem. In these cases, institutional and social settings are key, to come to acceptable solutions. Although environment is often mentioned, it is not a well represented stakeholder in most of the sites studied. Future problems that may aggravate water stress such as climate change, but also the impact of European policies are difficult to take into account by most stakeholders. More knowledge is needed to be able to act fast when facing a crisis but also to predict possible future problems. Not only adaptive management strategies should be developed, but also adaptive problem-threat-stress definition rules linked to these management strategies should be developed. Great care should be taken to make these as site specific as possible.

[Departement_IRSTEA]RE [TR1_IRSTEA]GES / USAGES; This report is based on the report Milestone 2.3-1 of the Aquastress project (Schmidt et al, 2005), which presented an inventory of examples of water balance models and gave a list of criteria to characterise hydrological models, and on the report Deliverable 2.3-1 of the Aquastress project (Schmidt et al, 2006), which describes the concept of the water balance model and the structure of the water stress assessment in the domestic, industrial, agricultural and (semi)natural ecosystem sectors. The water balance model (WBM) elaborated within work package 2.3 of the Aquastress project is used to characterise water stress and to identify causes of water stress. For the water balance model the water stress definition of work block 2 has been used (Bauer et al, 2005). The assessment of water stress by the WBM is simplified because it does not incorporate all aspects of water stress which are listed in the definition of Bauer et al., 2005. Thus the WBM does the simplified water stress assessment based on water fluxes and water quality, whereas the water stress definition of work block 2 takes also into account the adaptability of the test site to cope with water stress (Sullivan et al, 2007). The WBM provides a useful framework to characterise simplified water stress at a regional level. In the WBM simplified water stress is assessed in so called sectors. The industrial, domestic and agricultural sectors comprise calculations of water devoted to human consumption, whereas the environmental sector comprises water needed to sustain the (semi-)natural ecosystems. This text describes the adaptation and application of the water balance model in selected test sites. The water balance model has been developed as a generic tool which has to be modified to meet the characteristics of a test site. The model has not been tested or discussed by local partners or stakeholder although it has been prepared during the last project year and local partners showed interest. Due to the time delay within the project, particularly within the research activities with local partners, and due to the end of work block 2 research activities after the third project year, these activities will not been carried out. The application of the model is based on data being collected by project partners or already available from local partners or stakeholder. The water balance model is applied to two test sites (Morocco and Bulgaria). It has not been applied to all test sites because of data availability, the interest and co-operation of local partners, and the test sites characteristics. Both test sites cover all relevant sectors of the WBM. The WBM has been discussed with local partners in Morocco and integrated in the JWT activities. The application of the water balance model shows that the water balance model is able to represent the water stress situations in the test sites. Together with users of the water balance model it enables to structure discussions about causes of water stress and potential mitigation options.

[Departement_IRSTEA]RE [TR1_IRSTEA]GES / USAGES; The AquaStress project focus is mainly directed towards characterization and alleviation of current water stress experienced in a basin. In most basins, however, (changes in) water stress is just one of multiple hazards and stressors affecting the socio-ecological system (SES). In this report we describe a methodology to assess a region's vulnerability to water stress within the explicit setting of multiple interacting stresses crossing multiple scales. Emphasis is on thresholds that determine where and when negative (stabilizing) feedbacks turn into positive (disrupting) feedbacks. As a case study the method is applied to the Mértola region in the lower Guadiana river basin (Alentejo, Portugal). A further future coping strategy would be a system to share benefits of landscape conservation (e.g. touristic value) with traditional farmers responsible for the management of these landscapes.

[Departement_IRSTEA]RE [TR1_IRSTEA]GES / USAGES; Water stress is a global problem with far-reaching local economic and social implications. Extreme examples of water stress are climatic events as the long- rolonged drought period in the Iberian Peninsula or. In an era of high implication due to climatic changes, good management practices are needed to combat water stress. However, water resources management in the past has often been derived from a perspective where the different components of environment-technology-human systems were clearly separated and approached in a sequential fashion (Pahl-Wostl, 2002). The mitigation of water stress at local scale depends not just on technological innovations, but also on the development of new integrated water management tools and decision-making practices. This paper presents the implementation of a framework for assessing water stress described in detail by Sullivan et al., 2007. The framework is designed to assess the degree of water stress the different sectors face within a region. Our target focused on relatively small catchments in opposite to the main frameworks for describing water stress. The aim of the framework reaches further than just an assessment. It improves systems' coping capacities by focusing attention directly on the water stressors at the sectoral level. The method is sufficiently flexible to accommodate diverse mitigation options for water stress, whose contexts are location specific without presupposing the constraints of unique-size tailoring. However, the framework generates an index that can be employed to evaluate the relative water stress of diverse catchments to multiple sectoral water stressors and to their potential interactions.

[Departement_IRSTEA]RE [TR1_IRSTEA]GES / USAGES; This report provides a detailed overview of the development of an integrated tool for evaluation conditions of water stress, to be referred to as the Aquastress Water Stress Matrix (AWSM). This tool combines a selection of information relevant for water management decision making, and has at its core, a composite index of water stress, here referred to as the Aquastress Water Stress Index (AWSI). In addition to this composite index, the details of this index are presented in ways that can be visualised, as a means of overcoming the problem of providing complex water stress information as a single number. The framework allows including further information for decision makers within this matrix, like mapped and photographic evidence relating to the specific site under examination, as well as guidance, using a traffic light approach, on the urgency of the situation.