Water resources under climatic stress. An integrated assessment of impacts on water availability and water quality under changing climate and land use

Laufzeit: 2014 – 2016

Project funding

bmvit – Der Klima- und Energiefonds der Bundesregierung (kpc – kommunalkredit public consulting), opens an external URL in a new window

Short description

Within the Aqua-Stress project, the impacts of socio-economic (e.g. changes in agricultural practices or market prices) and climatic changes on agricultural production as well as water quality and availability are analyzed for the Austrian national territory using a model network.

For this purpose, scenarios are developed in cooperation with various stakeholders, which are presented via a model network and evaluated using a number of economic and ecological indicators (e.g. yields/costs or environmental quality standards for nutrients).

In addition to the Austrian national territory, four specific case studies are also considered. In two groundwater aquifers, an already developed groundwater model will be used to quantify the impact of extreme weather conditions (e.g. drought) on the resulting increased irrigation demand and associated water availability. Two additional regions will be studied using the PhosFate phosphorus emission and transport model to assess the impact of extreme precipitation and resulting changes on phosphorus emissions to surface waters.

The application of the project results is not limited to Austria, as the project can serve as a pilot study to analyze the impact of climate change on nutrient loading of international river basins (e.g. Danube).

Project management Aqua-Stress

Ao. Univ. Prof. DI Dr. Matthias Zessner-Spitzenberg

Institut für Wassergüte, Ressourcenmanagement und Abfallwirtschaft
Karlsplatz 13/226, 1040 Wien

Tel: +43 1 / 58801 - 22616