Situation:
The metropolitan Berlin-Brandenburg region in the north-eastern German lowlands has a relatively high surface area of rivers and lakes, but natural flow is low and precipitation is decreasing.
The city of Berlin and its metropolitan region rely on groundwater as the drinking water production source. Treated wastewater is currently released back into the local freshwaters, resulting in a partially closed water management cycle within the city area. Brandenburg state has a higher reliance on water for agriculture and ecosystems. The rising pressure of climate change is impacting the natural water cycle.
PROGNOSIS
Contact this team | Kontaktieren Sie dieses Team :
Daniel Wicke – daniel.wicke[@]kompetenz-wasser.de
Issues:
Water stress
- Affects health, urban and peri-urban development, climate change mitigation efforts.
- Deterioration of water production for drinking and agriculture.
- Increasing need for irrigation and agricultural re-use of treated waste water.
Water usage conflicts
- Potential usage restrictions could impact drinking water production.
- Exacerbation of existing conflicts by transition to climate-neutral energy production and development of new industries.
New policies required
- For adequate management of different interests.
- To harmonise the approach across the federal states of Berlin and Brandenburg.
- To converge single-aspect policies into an integrated, common strategy.
Ambitions within IMPETUS:
Map the trans-regional water cycle and water balance
(quantitative and qualitative)
Assess cross-sectoral, trans-regional vulnerability of critical water usages
Define and assess future scenarios including cross-sectoral water usage
Simulate future regional water balance scenarios
Reduce uncertainties in scientific models and analytical tools
Integrate data, models, tools and simulations in a Resilience Knowledge Booster
as a regional ‘toolbox’ and known information source
to pave the way for:
Establishment of a regional water board
(across federal state boundaries), negotiating water rights based on supply-demand scenarios
Vulnerability assessment and prioritisation of water usage
for various scenarios
Region to serve as a ‘lighthouse’ in the national water strategy
best-practice examples
Continuation of the Resilience Knowledge Booster
for regional and international adaptation activities.
Test solutions:
Integrated mapping and regional watershed modelling
Technology Readiness Level 7-9
Based on surface water, ground water and soil model coupling, this technology involves the operation of monitoring networks and the application of HYDRAX / QSIM / MODFLOW models to assess and manage water bodies and comply with the water framework directive.
In IMPETUS
- Over these modelling tools, analytical tools will be developed to assess regional water flows across the environmental compartments.
- SWAT+, FREEWAT and zeHGW models will be integrated for surface water-groundwater interaction.
- Earth data will be included for the projection of water levels and to assess impacts on land use.
- Scenarios of management of upstream surface water levels and waste water discharges to the Spree-Havel river system will be simulated.
This work is linked with:
- German Climate Adaptation Strategy (pdf, in German)
- German National Water Dialogue
- FREEWAT initiative
- SWAT initiative
Economic impact assessment of physical climate risk
Technology Readiness Level 4-5
Socio-Economic tools and risk projections enable the assessment of climate risks and the establishment of projections and metrics regarding future investments.
In IMPETUS
- Identify highly vulnerable hot-spots using open datasets for Copernicus services and satellite-derived variables.
- Transform this knowledge into a specific regional model and include this in the Resilience Knowledge Booster.
- Use the RKB and regional model to elaborate economic assessment metrics to aid decision making about investments and future mitigation plans.
This work is linked with:
- European Investment Bank
- European Central Bank