Department Surface Waters - Research and Management

Safe operating space in water resource management


Natural water resources are used in a variety of ways. The supply of water to households, agriculture, industry, the energy sector, tourism and ecosystems varies greatly from region to region. This can lead to various bottlenecks and conflicts of use. Climate change increases this potential for conflict because it also changes the long-term availability of water resources. 

The concept of Safe Operating Space makes it possible to recognise and weigh up such bottlenecks and conflicts of use. This requires hydrological models, environmental data and scenarios for the regional development of water consumption and availability. The model simulations ultimately enable optimal compromises in future resource management. 

The SOS-Water project demonstrates the assessment of the Safe Operating Space in the Danube, Rhine, Jucar and Mekong river basins. Eawag develops new water quality and quantity information from satellite data, which is used to adjust the model simulations as realistically as possible. This includes, for example, temperatures, ice cover and the suspended matter content of surface waters.

Publication

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      authors => protected'Calamita, E.; Lever, J. J.; Albergel, C.; Woolway, 
         R. I.; Odermatt, D.
' (105 chars) title => protected'Detecting climate‐related shifts in lakes: a review of the use of satellit
         e Earth Observation
' (95 chars) journal => protected'Limnology and Oceanography' (26 chars) year => protected2024 (integer) volume => protected69 (integer) issue => protected'4' (1 chars) startpage => protected'723' (3 chars) otherpage => protected'741' (3 chars) categories => protected'' (0 chars) description => protected'Climate change exerts a profound impact on lakes, eliciting responses that r
         ange from gradual to abrupt transitions. When reaching critical tipping poin
         ts, the established lake dynamics stand to undergo substantial modifications
         , setting off a chain reaction that reverberates through the entire ecosyste
         m. This lake shift ripples into related ecosystem services and even influenc
         es the well-being of human communities. Despite the importance of lake shift
         s, we lack a systematic overview of their occurrence, mainly due to the lack
          of systematic data at the global scale. We reviewed the literature focusing
          on climate-related lake shifts and assessed how satellite Earth Observation
          (EO) has contributed to the research topic, and what we can unlock from thi
         s novel data. Our results show that EO data are used in only 9% of studies o
         n lake shifts, although this fraction has increased since 2012. EO data is m
         ost commonly used to assess shifts in surface extent, ice coverage, or phyto
         plankton phenology. These variables are directly observable and the spatio-t
         emporal resolution of EO satellites is of great advantage. But lake shifts c
         an also be identified indirectly from EO data, as in the example of the vert
         ical mixing of lake water, which can be described on the basis of surface pa
         tterns. In all possible applications, we expect increasing use of EO satelli
         tes in the future, including the development of early warning systems that p
         romise to provide timely alerts regarding impending lake shifts, thus servin
         g as a vanguard against abrupt alterations that could ripple through interco
         nnected ecosystem services.
' (1623 chars) serialnumber => protected'0024-3590' (9 chars) doi => protected'10.1002/lno.12498' (17 chars) uid => protected32633 (integer) _localizedUid => protected32633 (integer)modified _languageUid => protectedNULL _versionedUid => protected32633 (integer)modified pid => protected124 (integer)
Calamita, E.; Lever, J. J.; Albergel, C.; Woolway, R. I.; Odermatt, D. (2024) Detecting climate‐related shifts in lakes: a review of the use of satellite Earth Observation, Limnology and Oceanography, 69(4), 723-741, doi:10.1002/lno.12498, Institutional Repository

Contact

Michael Brechbühler Scientific collaborator Tel. +41 58 765 6785 Send Mail

Collaboration