Category Archives: Notable past events

This is where you’ll find us at AGU 2015!

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These are our contributions at AGU 2015

H13R-01 Development of human impact modeling in global hydrology
Monday, 14 December 2015  13:40 – 13:55 Moscone West – 3011
Marc Bierkens and Yoshihide Wada

H13R-06 eWaterCycle: Recent progress in a global operational hydrological forecasting model
Monday, 14 December 2015  14:55 – 15:10 Moscone West – 3011
Nick Van De Giesen, Edwin Sutanudjaja, Marc Bierkens, Niels Drost, Rolf Hut

H13R-08 Limits to Global Groundwater Consumption
Inge de Graaf et al.
Monday, 14 December 2015  15:25 – 15:40 Moscone West – 3011

H23E-1622 The HyperHydro (H^2) experiment for comparing different large-scale models at various resolutions
Edwin Sutanudjaja et al.
Tuesday, 15 December 2015  13:40 – 18:00 Moscone South – Poster Hall

GC32B-05 Reducing water scarcity possible by 2050: Linking global assessments to policy dimensions
Yoshihide Wada et al.
Wednesday, 16 December 2015  11:20 – 11:35 Moscone West – 3001

H43J-04 Improved Large-Scale Inundation Modelling by 1D-2D Coupling and Consideration of Hydrologic and Hydrodynamic Processes – a Case Study in the Amazon
Jannis Hoch et al.
Thursday, 17 December 2015  14:25 – 14:40 Moscone West – 3020

H43E-1545 Simulating the impact of past and future land cover and climate change on the global hydrological system using PCR-GLOBWB
Joyce Bosmans et al.

Thursday, 17 December 2015  13:40 – 18:00 Moscone South – Poster Hall
G52A-08 A century-long simulation of terrestrial water storage change and its contribution to global sea-level
Marc Bierkens et al.
Friday, 18 December 2015  12:05 – 12:20 Moscone West – 2002

H53L-04 Improved Large-Scale Hydrological Modelling Through The Assimilation Of Streamflow And Downscaled Satellite Soil Moisture Observations
Patricia Lopez-Lopez et al.
Friday, 18 December 2015  14:25 – 14:40 Moscone West – 3022

And Yoshi Wada’s many co-operative papers: https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm15/meetingapp.cgi/Person/90990

And Niko Wanders (former PhD) seeding his many oats:
https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm15/meetingapp.cgi/Person/61864

Virtual water trade in the Roman world

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oman aqueduct of Luynes (Credit: Daniel Jolivet)

oman aqueduct of Luynes (Credit: Daniel Jolivet)

The Roman World used trade of grain (actual virtual water trade) as a means to be more resilient against climate change. At the same time, as population grew as a result of a steady supply of food, it became more dependent on trade and thus more sensitive to political or climatological disturbances of the trade network. These are the main conclusions from a study by

The Roman World used trade of grain (actual virtual water trade) as a means to be more resilient against climate change. At the same time, as population grew as a result of a steady supply of food, it became more dependent on trade and thus more sensitive to political or climatological disturbances of the trade network. These are the main conclusions from a study by Brian Dermody and coworkers from the Netherlands and the US.

The paper appeared in Hydrology and Earth System Sciences:

Dermody, B. J., van Beek, R. P. H., Meeks, E., Klein Goldewijk, K., Scheidel, W., van der Velde, Y., Bierkens, M. F. P., Wassen, M. J., and Dekker, S. C.: A virtual water network of the Roman world, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 18, 5025-5040, doi:10.5194/hess-18-5025-2014, 2014.

See the press release of EGU!

It got quite some media attention. For instance in Smithsonian Magazine.

Human and climate impacts on the 21st century hydrological drought

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Niko Wanders and Yoshihide Wada published a paper in the Journal of Hydrology where they analyzed which part of the expected future hydrological drouht can be attributed to climate change and which part to human water consumption.

The paper:

N. Wanders and Y. Wada, 2014.  Human and climate impacts on the 21st century hydrological drought, Journal of Hydrology (in press; online).
Their results show “a significant impact of climate change and human water use in large parts of Asia, Middle East and the Mediterranean, where the relative contribution of humans on the changed drought severity can be close to 100%”. The conclude that “the impact of human water use and reservoirs is nontrivial and can vary substantially per region and per season. Therefore, human influences should be included in projections of future drought characteristics, considering their large impact on the changing drought conditions”.

Figure 5 of their article: Impact of reservoirs and human water use on drought deficit volume compared to the pristine conditions (dDefhuman), over the period 2070–2099. Each plot gives the annual average impact derived from 5 GCMs for different RCP scenarios. Impact is calculated as a percent, where positive percentages indicate a increase in the drought deficit volume and negative percentages indicate an decrease in the drought deficit volume as a result of human water use and reservoirs.