Thesis Code: T3

Water storage expansion for adapting to projected drought events

Short description:

Climate change will severely affect freshwater availability across much of Europe by the end of 21st century. In a warmer climate, many river basins, especially in Southern Europe and the Mediterranean region, are likely to become more prone to periods of water scarcity, with projections indicating up to a 40 percent reduction in minimum streamflow by the 2080s in this area (1). The cost of drought in Europe, which amounted to over 9 billion euros per year, will considerably increase as future droughts are expected to be more severe and long-lasting (2).

Investments in water storage expansions can contribute to making these systems more resilient against drought events (3). At the National level there is growing awareness about the need of expanding storage to filter the growing variability of hydroclimatic regimes and better align water availability and demands that are often out of phase (4). It remains however unclear how to identify, size, and locate these new infrastructures, which will produce multifaceted impacts across sectors and across scales.

The aim of this thesis is developing a a decision analytic framework to support the strategic and robust planning of water storage expansion, for improving drought resilience under climate change in Northern Italy. The student is expected to carry out the following activities:

  1. Literature review: reviewing the state-of-the-art drought monitoring methods and climate projections
  2. Data collection: acquisition of data about existing and planned storage infrastructures, along with observed/reanalysis data and climate projections of relevant hydroclimatic variables
  3. Computational experiments:
  • Analysis of historical and projected evolution of drought events’ frequency and intensity using high-resolution climate projections downscaled via convection permitting climate models (5)
  • Estimation of future agricultural water demands (6)
  • Analysis the potential benefit generated by the expansion of storage infrastructures in managing future droughts

References:

  1. Forzieri et al. (2014). Ensemble projections of future streamflow droughts in Europe. Hydrological Earth Systems Sciences, 18, 85-108.
  2. Samaniego et al. (2018). Anthropogenic warming exacerbates European soil moisture droughts. Nature Climate Change 8, 421
  3. Schmitt et al. (2022). Global expansion of sustainable irrigation limited by water storage. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(47)
  4. Accetturo et al. (2022). Cambiamenti climatici, infrastrutture e mobilità. Rapporto della Commissione cambiamenti climatici, infrastrutture e mobilità sostenibili
  5. Pichelli et al. (2021). The first multi-model ensemble of regional climate simulations at kilometer-scale resolution part 2: historical and future simulations of precipitation. Climate Dynamics, 56, 3581-3602.
  6. Chiarelli et al. (2020). The green and blue crop water requirement watneeds model and its global gridded outputs. Scientific data, 7(1):273.

Relevant courses and knowledge:

Advanced Environmental Systems Analysis, Natural Resources Management

Number of students:

1

Requisites:

The student should be comfortable with data handling and programming skills (Matlab or Python).