BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Memento EPFL// BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Impacts of a changing climate on mountain water availability\, all ocation\, and use: results from the EU/FP7 “ACQWA” Project DTSTART:20141209T161500 DTEND:20141209T171500 DTSTAMP:20260427T234216Z UID:44ad4504643e2c926b8b0647070bf60ace422bd5e2535e0e10a112fe CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars DESCRIPTION:Dr Martin Beniston\, C3i (Climatic Change and Climate Impacts Research)\, Institute for Environmental Sciences\, University of Geneva\nA bstract:\nFuture shifts in temperature and precipitation patterns\, and ch anges in the behavior of snow and ice in many mountain regions will change the quantity\, seasonality\, and possibly also the quality of water origi nating in mountains and uplands. As a result\, changing water availability will affect both upland and populated lowland areas. Economic sectors suc h as agriculture\, tourism or hydropower may enter into rivalries if water is no longer available in sufficient quantities or at the right time of t he year. The challenge is thus to estimate as accurately as possible futur e changes in order to prepare the way for appropriate adaptation strategie s and improved water governance.\nThe ACQWA project aimed to assess the vu lnerability of water resources in mountain regions such as the European Al ps\, the Central Chilean Andes\, and the mountains of Central Asia (Kyrgyz stan) where declining snow and ice are likely to strongly affect hydrologi cal regimes in a warmer climate. Based on RCM (Regional Climate Model) sim ulations\, a suite of cryosphere\, biosphere and economic models were then used to quantify the environmental\, economic and social impacts of chang ing water resources in order to assess how robust current water governance strategies are and what adaptations may be needed to alleviate the most n egative impacts of climate change on water resources and water use.\nThe r esults of RCMs used in ACQWA show that climate will affect both the natura l environment and a number of economic activities. Alpine glaciers may los e between 50 and 90% of their current volume and the average snowline will rise by 150 m for each degree of warming. Hydrological systems will respo nd in quantity and seasonality to changing precipitation patterns and to t he timing of snow-melt in the Alps\, with a greater risk of flooding durin g the spring and droughts in summer and fall. The direct and indirect impa cts of a warming climate will affect key economic sectors such as tourism\ , hydropower\, agriculture and the insurance industry that will be confron ted to more frequent natural disasters.\nThe results from the ACQWA projec t suggest that there is a need for a more integrated and comprehensive app roach to water use and management. In particular\, beyond the conventional water basin management perspective\, there is a need to consider other so cio-economic factors and the manner in which water policies interact with\ , or are affected by\, other policies at the local\, national\, and supra- national levels.Short biography:\nMartin Beniston has studied atmospheric and climate physics in England (BSc and MSc)\, France (PhD) and at ETH-Zur ich (Habilitation degree). He has worked in research Institutions in Austr alia\, Canada\, Germany and Switzerland\, including ETH-Zurich. He was fro m 1992-1997 a vice-chair of one of the climate-impacts working groups of t he Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC\, recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize). He was full professor and head of the Department of G eosciences at the University of Fribourg from 1996-2006. He is currently a t the University of Geneva\, where he is Director of the Institute for Env ironmental Sciences (ISE) and co-ordinator of a major European project on climate and water (www.acqwa.ch). He has close to 170 publications in the international literature\, and is editor or associate editor of several jo urnals and book series with international publishers. In 2000\, he was ele cted to the Academia Europea. LOCATION:GR A3 31 http://plan.epfl.ch/?room=GR%20A3%2031 STATUS:CONFIRMED END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR