A new interactive Story Map on GEMS/Water has been recently published. The Story Map presents the objectives, elements and current activities of the Programme supported by interactive maps and videos.
The Story Map is available here:
https://uneplive.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapJournal/index.html?appid=4f0a0a31fa4f429b8903634dbe0fec14
The Story Map is also part of the UNEP World Environment Situation Room for Water.
Water is not only rain, rivers and lakes. Water is fundamentally related to the landscape, food production, biodiversity and ecosystem services. Dr. Fader from ICWRGC collaborated with French researchers to giveecologists guidance on using land-use and land-cover change scenarios to generate biodiversity and ecosystem services scenarios. In a further study, Dr. Fader collaborated with another group of authors to demonstrate that multiple-cropping and cropland expansion in Brazil do not only affect agricultural yields but also water productivity.
See the articles under:
“What ecologists should know before using land-use/cover change projections for biodiversity and ecosystem service assessments”
“The effects of cropping intensity and cropland expansion of Brazilian soybean production on green water flows”
New scientific associate in the CO-MICC project team
In October, Denise Cáceres joined ICWRGC as a member of the CO-MICC project team. CO-MICC (2018-2021), a scientific project led by the Goethe University of Frankfurt, aims to provide quantitative information on freshwater-related hazards of climate change, based on multiple hydrological models and climate scenarios, for risk and adaptation assessments at various spatial scales. This information will be provided in the form of an open-access web portal that can easily be accessed and understood by different types of end-users. The web portal will consist of a data portal, giving access to the multi-model-based data, and a knowledge portal containing meta information and methods co-developed together with stakeholders (end-users) on how to best utilize these data.
Denise is responsible for the dissemination of the project activities and results. Her main task is to develop the knowledge portal. Additionally, she supports the development of the data portal and facilitates the exchange between the project modelling team (knowledge providers) and the stakeholders (knowledge end-users) from the Ebro basin in Spain, one of the focus regions of the project.
Aside from her involvement in CO-MICC, Denise is currently a PhD candidate affiliated to the Goethe University of Frankfurt. As part of her PhD project, she has recently published a scientific article entitled “Assessing global water mass transfers from continents to oceans over the period 1948-2016” in the Hydrology and Earth System Sciences peer-reviewed journal (https://hess.copernicus.org/articles/24/4831/2020/). This publication stemmed from her collaboration with scientists from various disciplines (hydrology, glaciology and geodesy) in the framework of the Sea Level Budget Closure project from the ESA Climate Change Initiative.
The article deals with the question of how and to which extent changes in water storage on continents had an effect on the global ocean mass over the period 1948–2016. The results show that continents lost water to oceans at an accelerated rate, inducing sea level rise. Shrinking glaciers explain 81% of the long-term continental water mass loss, while declining groundwater levels, mainly due to sustained groundwater pumping for irrigation, is the second major driver. This long-term decline was partly offset by the impoundment of water in dams.
The virtual WMO Data Conference (16–19 Nov. 2020) and the preceding preparatory workshops are a milestone towards an agreement on a new Data Policy in 2021 (see https://meetings.wmo.int/WMO-Data-Conference/SitePages/Conference%20Scheme.aspx).
Looking back, the WMO constituent bodies have adopted thousands of resolutions since 1950. But only one, Resolution 40 of the 12th World Meteorological Congress (WMO, 1995), has needed no other identifier and continues to be known simply as “Resolution 40” (whole title “WMO Policy and Practice for the Exchange of Meteorological and Related Data and Products including Guidelines on Relationships in Commercial Meteorological Activities”). On the occasion of its 70th anniversary, WMO published a very valuable document called “Origin, Impact and Aftermath of WMO Resolution 40” (see: https://library.wmo.int/doc_num.php?explnum_id=10140), reflecting the development of WMO and its role for meteorological and hydrological data.
Moving into a rapidly developing world of Big Data, Open Data, Open Science, and an increasing need for data availability and exchange, e.g. to support the achievement of the 17 UN SDGs, the UN Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, the PARIS Climate Agreement, and in general the “Leaving no one behind” principle, the new WMO policy statement reads as follows:
“As a fundamental principle of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and in consonance with the expanding requirements for its scientific and technical expertise, WMO commits itself to broadening and enhancing the free and unrestricted international exchange of meteorological and related data and products.”
Providing data and data products on weather, climate and water, hydrology is an essential and integral part within this development of WMO, steered by the Hydrological Assembly, the Hydrological Coordination Panel, several working groups and the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services world-wide. ICWRGC, BfG, their global data centres and the Global Terrestrial Network Hydrology are pro-actively involved and part of this development (see https://www.gtn-h.info/).
Therefore, ICWRGC’s Dr. Stephan Dietrich contributed two posters to the virtual poster session of the WMO Data Conference:
Additionally, the following GTN-H members supported the WMO Data Conference with own contributions:
All posters of the conference can be found under https://meetings.wmo.int/WMO-Data-Conference/SitePages/Virtual%20Poster%20Session.aspx
The team members of the URSACHEN project, a collaborative project between the German Federal Institute of Hydrology and International Centre for Water Resources and Global Change, have conducted their first sampling campaign. URSACHEN investigates the uncertainties in river load estimations caused by the spatial and temporal variability of suspended solid concentrations and their chemical composition.
Figure 1: URSACHEN Team in Emmerich
The project has planned two types of sampling campaigns to investigate these temporal and spatial variations in the Rhine river. Despite the delays due to COVID-19, URSACHEN has now started the series of sampling campaigns focusing on temporal variability. The sampling campaigns focusing on spatial variability are expected to begin in December 2020.
Figure 2: Closed Van Dorn bottle
The temporal variability campaigns were conducted at all 3 focus locations (Koblenz, Brohl, Emmerich; figure 1), at low river discharge in the Rhine. The URSACHEN team members were to take river water samples at 15 seconds intervals for a duration of 10 minutes. The 2L samples needed to be split over two sample bottles while the sediment was still in suspension. Two different BfG sections would then analyse the two bottles as to their sediment concentration, grain size distribution and chemical composition.
Figure 3: Transferring sample to sample bottles
This sampling set-up required a smooth-routine, with 6 persons involved. Two persons took samples using Van Dorn bottles. These special Van Dorn bottles allow water sampling with limited disturbances of the water flow and its turbulences. The Van Dorn bottles are tubes with 2 lids on both sides that can be opened (picture 2). When a weight hits the Van Dorn sampler’s closing mechanism, the lids automatically close. After taking the sample, it was poured in the funnel connected to a sample splitter separating the sample in two representative portions (Figure 3). Next, the lids needed to be opened again for the next sample.
Figure 4: Opening of Van Dorn bottles
The URSACHEN team will repeat this sampling campaign at average and high river discharge. As mentioned above, the spatial variability campaigns will start soon, where river cross-section samples will be taken from the Rhine at Koblenz, Brohl and Emmerich.
Billions of people depend on the availability of groundwater for their daily drinking water supply. In view of climate change and the correlating droughts and floods, this necessity will be further aggravated. Groundwater recharge, i.e. the amount of water infiltrating through the soil into the groundwater, is a central indicator for groundwater availability.
Dr. Robert Reinecke presented new results of his study “Changes of groundwater recharge at different global warming levels: A global-scale multi-model ensemble approach” at the IWRA Conference on the issue “Addressing Groundwater Resilience under Climate Change” on 29 October. The talk was attended by about 250 listeners. For the very first time, it shows global changes in groundwater recharge under various global warming scenarios for the entire planet. The study is still in the review process.
The results show major uncertainties in the modelling of groundwater recharge processes and the necessity to improve mapping of these processes in global hydrological models.
Today, the most recent report of the Global Terrestrial Network’s Panel for Hydrology has been published as a GCOS publication.
Data and information provided by the GTN-H global data centres continue to be essential sources of information for the UN, regional and national programmes, and projects in support of development and science. This was particularly evident in June 2019, when the 18th WMO Congress recognised GTN-H and its federated data centres as a major WMO hydrological initiative supporting the GCOS implementation plan and improving data interoperability. GTN-H operates under the auspices of GCOS and WMO and is engaged in the consistent monitoring of the terrestrial part of the global water cycle and global water resources, in particular focussing on in situ observations.
The report looks at the status of GTN-H member networks and data centres and summarises the work plan for 2019-21. The latter has a clear focus on further supporting the exchange of global water data together with the partner organisations, and in particular the federated data centres.
The exchange of water data is currently also the subject of the WMO Data Conference, where GTN-H is actively contributing by demonstrating its facilities and infrastructure.
It can be found in the WMO library:
As in previous years, the “International German Summer School on Hydrology (IGSH)” was held at Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) from 09–22 September 2020. This year’s focus was on “groundwater and energy”.
The Summer School is intended for international students and junior scientists (primarily from developing countries) from the water and environmental sectors, engineering sciences as well as geography, hydrology, and chemistry. Courses are held solely in English and cover various topics in the hydrogeology and hydrology sector. The participants are awarded credit points for their degree programme in the event of a successful completion of the course.
Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Summer School was held as an online event for the first time. Thus, the focus was on scientific lectures and corresponding tutorials as well as virtual teamwork based on real data. On top of that, cultural and social aspects were transmitted i.a. as self-produced videos. Although the participants came from all continents and therefore different time zones, a continuous presence of all attendees was assured.
As in previous years, the Summer School was supported by ICWRGC as a successful German contribution in the field of training and capacity development for the International Hydrological Programme (IHP) of UNESCO.
IGSH Uni BochumJan Danhelka, Deputy Director and Head of the Division of Hydrology of the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute as well as Chairperson of WMO`s first Hydrological Assembly and Hydrological Coordination Panel (HCP), explains in his current video the latest draft of the WMO Vision and Strategy for Operational Hydrology and Action Plan to cope with future water challenges. Pending the extraordinary Congress of WMO (31 May – 04 June 2021), this draft will be further developed and agreed by the member states. Thus, the Hydrological Programme (HWRP) of WMO will be continued.
On the occasion of the World Water Week, Dr. Robert Reinecke, Deputy Director of ICWRGC, gave an interview on the German radio station radioeins dealing with the question “Is there enough water in the world for everyone?”. The World Water Week is the most influential conference of this kind. For the first time, the entire conference will be held online.
