This project intends to develop a methodology and tools to assess the effects of climate and global change on the management of water resource systems and identify optimal adaptation strategies to mitigate its impacts at different spatial scales: river basin and groundwater body scales. The methodology is based on the generation of hydrologic time series for climate change scenarios (applying statistical methods to regional climatic scenarios), projection of demands, and development of hydroeconomic models of water resources management in these systems, in order to analyze in a comprehensive way the multiple impacts (hydrologic, economic, agronomic, and environmental) of different climate change scenarios, with adequate accuracy at the proper spatial and temporal scale.

This is an innovative objective. In the scant literature on models for adaptation of water resources management to climate change, two approaches are observed: simulation and optimization models. However, in this study we propose the combined use of simulation and optimization models, taking advantages of the particularities of each approach. In groundwater hydrology, only a few studies have been carried out to determine the sensitivity of groundwater systems and stream-aquifer interaction to climate change. However, the forecasted changes can lead to important modifications in aquifer recharge, with the corresponding changes in hydraulic heads, and therefore, in the availability of resources, stream-aquifer interaction, pumping cost, and groundwater pollution. Most basin-wide hydroeconomic models ignores or simplifies groundwater flow and storage and stream-aquifer interaction, which can mislead the use of the results to support policy choices at certain basins. Analytical and numerical solutions employing eigenvalues techniques will be explored in this project. Against the traditional engineering models, the integration of information about the economic value of water and the cost of different policies within the model will allow to assess the economic effects of climate change, to search economically optimal adaptation policies and to explore economic instruments as water markets, water pricing, etc. The case studies will allow testing the potential of the methodology, and to draw conclusions on the different sources of uncertainty and their consequences.

This is a coordinated project, proposed by young researchers, and integrated in a priority research issue, Energy and Climate Change. The multidisciplinarity of the project comes from the multiple disciplines (hydrology, economics, institutions) and objectives (environmental, economic, social) that converge. So the project is laid as coordinated: for analyzing strategies to adjust to climate change by integrating the hydrologic-hydrogeologic dimensions (subproject 1) with the projection and economic characterization of the demands and possible environmental impacts into comprehensive hydroeconomic management models (subproject 2).