Advancing QUAlity of CLimate services for European Water. (AQUACLEW)
The current work to develop climate services indicates that the following crucial improvements are required to increase user adoption and satisfaction: (a) indicators and resolution of the indicators given by the service needs to address a wider range of user needs; (b) large-scale climate service data should be more reliable at the local decision scale and (c) guidance and visualization tools in the services should better reflect the wider range of user needs. In AQUACLEW, research addressing these improvements will be co-developed considering user inputs to further integrate users across the whole chain of climate service production. This means users are updated on the latest scientific knowledge; better understand potentials or limitations of the data and can influence (choose between) assumptions made in each step when producing the service output.
The overall goal of AQUACLEW is to use innovative research techniques and integrated co-development with users to advance the quality and usability of several climate services for several water related sectors.
University of Cordoba leads WP1 "User needs" and therefore it is in charge of developing advanced feed-back loops along the whole chain of information production, to better understand user needs. In addition, UCO participates actively in the others work packages. In WP2, UCO is involved in the different proposed experiment to improve data quality (i.e. climate and hydrological model selection, and application of expert elicitation techniques in the context of climate services); in WP3, UCO leads one of the study cases "Drought and Water resource allocation for tourism, agriculture, energy sectors"; and WP4 contributes in the definition of the key performance indictors to quaintly the success in the project.
D1.1. Report: Individual and global results of co-development in the climate services and final data in AQUACLEW.
D1.2. Report/Scientific Paper: Evaluation of the role of co-development in the usability and uptake of climate services (Based on the comparison of trained and untrained user‘s ability to use the CS and how the CS has evolved since the project start).
D2.1. Report/Scientific Article: Methods and frameworks for evaluating climate change model suitability and designing climate model ensembles for simulating hydrological impacts of climate change.
D2.2. Report/Scientific Article: A user guide to choosing bias-correction, delta-change or statistical downscaling techniques specific to hydrological indicators.
D2.3. Report/Scientific Article: Methods and Frameworks for evaluating hydrological model suitability for simulating hydrological climate change indicators at different scales. Methods to design hydrological model ensembles based on this.
D2.5. Climate Service Update 2: Updated regional/national climate indicators based on new methods uploaded to the Danish and Austrian national climate portals and regional Danish, German and Spanish portals. Choice of indicators will be based on both user needs and the portal's focus area.
D3.1. Report: User evaluation of the usability of existing climate services relevant to each case study
D3.2. Report/Scientific Article: Comparison of climate change impacts using existing and new methods.
D3.3. Report:/Scientific Article: Analysis of the usability of the new data in decision making
D4.4. Policy briefs
D4.5. Final project report including result implementation and sustainability plans
AQUACLEW will develop a user interface in web and interactive format that will be tested in different environments that already demand climate services associated with the use of water. The main obstacle for the end user is the uncertainty and resolution of the supplied data. Knowing with specific details for each case study how the climate projections are configured will mean a new starting point in decision-making and their use. Hydrological model evaluation frameworks, bias correction methods, the adequacy to assess the impact of climate change in specific cases will be included; all this under the same access environment that facilitates the understanding and competence of the user of these services, and that will include a wide range of possible applications (from risk of floods to droughts, through hydroelectric generation, irrigation, ecology, sediment transport or coastal erosion). Having data adjusted to the local scale of these applications, and utilities for viewing, downloading, tutorials, will promote the use of climate services in sectors associated with water use, and will expand the set of end users more effectively, since co-design and co-development with clients already identified and committed are prioritized. Final ambition is to create a network of users on a European scale of continuous training and expansion, with the return of these users along the transmission chain of data agencies, experts, researchers, managers, water users and citizens affected by use and impact. A community of users committed to mitigation and adaptation needs.
The result will be climate services associated with the use of water with excellent quality, together with shared knowledge, which will lead to greater user commitment to adaptation programs, and better related decision-making. This will increase the resilience of companies, agencies, administrations, society and the environment against climate variability and its social, economic and environmental impacts.
Dinámica fluvial e hidrología
Code PAIDI: TEP-248
María José Polo Gómez . Partner.
Universidad de Córdoba
Budget of Andalusian group: € 95,000.00
