Tommaso Moramarco1, Silvia Barbetta1, Luca Brocca1, Pamela Maccioni1, Irina Ribarova2, Emil Tsanov2, Plamen Ninov2, Galina Dimova2, Grigor Grigorov2, Martin Volk3, Friedrich Koch3, Jens Weiner3, Sandra Ledermüller3, Maggie Kossida4, Giorgos Lourmas4, Eleni Avramidi4, Christos Makropoulos5, Elias Sotiropoulos5, Katerina Tzouka5, 2013, “Assessment of water Balances and Optimisation based Target setting across EU River Basins (ABOT)” Action – Final Technical Report, 2013,
URL: http://www.cnr.it/prodotto/i/298871

The overall aim of the ABOT project is to support the European Commission's effort to identify means and develop prevention activities to halt desertification in Europe, by focusing on complementing EU water resources balances elaborated in the framework of the System of Economic and Environmental Accounts for Water (SEEAW) and supplementing ongoing projects which tackle water scarcity, droughts and desertification. The specific objectives of the project are to_ - Establish a clear overview of data availability for water balance modeling in 4 pilot River Basins across Europe_ Tiber RB (Italy), Mulde RB (Germany), Ali-Efenti Pinios RB (Greece), Vit RB (Bulgaria) - Collect, process and analyze for the pilot River Basins the necessary datasets that are indispensable for the development of water accounts under the SEEAW system and feed them in the SEEAW-ECRINS framework. - Develop detailed water resources balances for the pilot River Basins based on the method applied by the SEEAW and using an analytical physical based model to accurately capture the interactions of the different components of the water cycle (common modelling approach using the WEAP software) - Identify management, technological and economic measures allowing the setting up of optimal water management in the pilot River Basins while involving local stakeholders and water managers. - Develop a library of "wish" measures that can improve the water balance and alleviate the possible deficit between availability and demand (i.e. increase supply, reduce demand), and test/simulate their impact and effectiveness against specific criteria, (e.g. water use reduction per economic activity, cost, environmental and socio-economic benefits) for the pilot River Basins. - Build and apply optimization algorithms in order to estimate possibilities for optimization of water allocation to meet demand in the selected pilot River Basins as well as the water saving potential associated to the different measures under specific context. Run an optimization process under specific criteria and constraints to select the optimum measures against a specific objective function. - Derive sector specific targets in the pilot River Basins regarding water saving and water efficiency which will allow the preservation and/or restoration of the natural water balance. Cross-compare these outputs with the purpose of proposing targets according to different typology of River Basins. - Run a sensitivity analysis for these proposed targets for 3 alternative futures (climate and socio-economic) in order to evaluate the robustness of the proposed interventions - Share and disseminate all results, key assumptions and uncertainties in a transparent manner with all relevant parties and involve local stakeholders in the process. - Post process the project results to provide necessary input to the Blueprint and the WS&D Policy Review. These objectives are clearly linked to the current developments of DG Environment, DG Research, Joint Research Centre, European Environment Agency and others in relation to the 2012 Blueprint to Safeguard Europe's Waters'1, the 2007 Communication on Water Scarcity and Drought2, the development of EU water accounts under the SEEAW framework, the WFD objectives, and are complementing other ongoing projects and initiatives. Pillars of the 2007 Communication and the 2012 Blueprint are directly addressed within this project_ assessment of the vulnerability of water resources to climate change and other man made pressures, indications for water efficiency targets, water allocation, fostering water saving measures, etc. The project objectives have been clearly achieved. The implementation process was built around 5 inter-related tasks which were feeding results one-to-the other_ Task A is a management and methodology development task - Task A aimed at leading the project in scientific and technical success, within a robust organizational framework that supports collaboration and exchange. This task also aimed in supporting a good communication and feedback with the local RB authorities, DG Environment and other involved contractors of relevant ongoing studies. Among the first activities was drafting the conceptual methodology to be followed during the study, in a stepwise and analytical way, defining the modeling framework and design specifications, the data requirements, the scenarios to be analyzed, the optimization process, the targets to be derived, the constraints and uncertainties involved etc. Tasks B is a data collection and analysis task - Task B aimed at collecting all the necessary data to build water balances in the pilot River Basins according to the SEEAW methodology. These data have been quality assured, processed and analyzed to achieve the required level of temporal and spatial disaggregation and were used to (a) build the water balances, (b) feed the ongoing SEEAW calculations under the ECRINS system. Tasks C and D are modeling tasks - Task C aimed at building a water management model for each pilot River Basins using a harmonized approach and common software, the "Water Evaluation and Planning System" (WEAP). The model developed water balances as well as additional functionalities in order to run simulations and scenarios for optimal water allocation representing the physical system. Local stakeholders were involved in this process, while the model output also fed the SEEAW standard framework. - Task D aimed at identifying management, technological and economic measures (library of "wish" measures) and test/simulate their impact and effectiveness against specific criteria (e.g. water use reduction per economic activity, cost, environmental and socio-economic benefits) for the pilot River Basins within the WEAP models developed in task C. Furthermore, within this task built and applied optimization algorithms in order to optimize water allocation and meet demand in the selected pilot River Basins while maximizing the selected objective function. The optimal measures were cross-compared among the 4 Pilot River Basins. Task E is a policy related and dissemination task - Task E aimed at deriving indicative targets for reducing the vulnerability of water resources in the pilot River Basins. These sector specific targets focused on water saving and water efficiency will allow the preservation and/or restoration of the natural water balance. Their robustness was assessed against alternative future scenarios. The overall goal was to propose targets according to different typology of River Basins. The results were post-processed in order to provide input to the water policy process.

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