Onderzoek doen en overeenkomen van hydrologische scenario's

• Literature review: a shared international knowledge of the basin.

The objective is to share our knowledge on the present & future characteristics & hydrological behaviour of the Meuse river basin.

Knowledge on this topic is still scatered & hardly available within the 3 official languages spoken on the Meuse basin.

Documents will be shared all along the AMICE project via the AMICE website. Information will be gathered by the partners, translated into English, French, Dutch or German when required & organised by topics.

Links will be created with the websites of forecast services that have their own databases of free raw data.

The information is already available through the different partners. The International Meuse Commission has also started to gather information & has it freely accessible. NGOs will be sought to provide information on their research & water management projects on the basin.

The partners will focus on the following topics (to be detailed at beginning of Action):

present & future hydrology/ land-use/ urbanism & infrastructures/ human & economic activities/ transport by rivers/ Natura 2000 in the riparian zone/ water uses & water demand/ tools for prevention & forecast/ diversity of water management in the Meuse countries.

Special attention will be given to research on the evolutions of the basin’s characteristics for the periods 2030-2050 & beyond 2050.

If required, the partnership will initiate new studies for the poorly known areas of the Meuse river basin (studies not to be conducted within AMICE).

A recent book covering the entire basin of the Meuse ‘VAN REGEN TOT MAAS’ published by Veen Magazines, will be translated to French and advertised.

• Maps of the international hydrographic district of the Meuse

Presently, there is no map representing the whole Meuse basin with enough details to be used by water managers (see global representations on http://www.epama.fr/files_fr/epama_meuse/epama_meuse_carte.php4). Each country or region has its own hydrological maps, with blank zones outside of its administrative boarders.

International maps will be published and provided to all institutions responsible for water management in the Meuse river basin.

Maps of international basins are crucial for the population to understand the concept of 'catchment basin', realise they have a link with the neighbour countries, and increase solidarity in case of floods or low-flows.

Once the hydraulic runs have been carried-out and the damages calculated, maps will be made to locate the most vulnerable areas: different scales can be used according to the available data and the vulnerability of the area. Article 4 – 2.d) of the Floods Directive promotes "the evaluation of the potential negative consequences of future floods (…) taking into account (…) the long-term evolutions such as climate changes".

Creation of these maps within the AMICE project ensures that the work is concerted at the international level and that the recommendations of the Floods Directive are applied in due time (deadline December 2013): cf FLOODWISE project.

Risk mapping can also create a higher awareness and acceptance among the public and stakeholders on the effects of climate change and the need to adapt.

Maps related to low-flows risks will be highly innovative and require more thinking as there is no “Drought Directive” to guide us yet.

• Analysis of climate change, flood and low-flow scenarios for the periods 2030-2050 and beyond 2050.

This Action is dedicated to the study of downscaled climate simulations for 2030-2050 and beyond 2050 and their consequences in terms of floods and low-flows on the Meuse river basin.

Partners will analyse climate simulations from meteorological institutes (IPSL, Cerfacs, KMI, KNMI, ...), national and EU research programmes (Prudence, Ensembles, ADAPT, etc): bibliographies, interviews of users, experts invited to meetings. They will check if they can be applied to the Meuse basin, assess their uncertainty and the required corrections. The uncertainty bounds will later determine the level of detail of the adaptation strategy.

New production or acquisition of climate data will not be carried-out because:

- the project is more oriented on climate change consequences rather than on its causes,

- the length of the project is unsufficient for running new meteorological simulations,

- there are existing scientific publications and data that can be used to document the issue.

Once the climate scenarios are defined, there are 2 methods to build floods and low-flows scenarios (to be chosen among partners, based on available data):

- Dynamic: Climatic parameters are used in a hydrological model to obtain long-lasting floods and annual maximum discharges. Several hydrological models exist on the Meuse basin and can be re-used.

- Statistical: Extreme hydrological events (like in 1993 or 1995 for floods and 1976 or 2003 for low-flows) are linked to a climatic context and return period. Statistical analysis of low-flows has been carried-out in all countries but Wallonia which will fill the knowledge-gap.

The following questions will be answered:

- which discharges can be expected on the river Meuse and main tributaries?

- how the return period, duration, extent of floods and low-flows will change from now to 2030-2050 and beyond 2050?

A technical report will be written, presenting the scenarios and the method to obtain them.