Abstract

The WASSERMed project will analyse, in a multi-disciplinary way, ongoing and future climate induced changes in hydrological budgets and extremes in southern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East under the frame of threats to national and human security. A climatic and hydrological component directly addresses the reduction of uncertainty and quantification of risk. This component will provide an interface to other climatologic projects and models, producing climate change scenarios for the Mediterranean and Southern Europe, with special emphasis on precipitation. Five case studies will be considered: 1) Syros Island (Greece), 2) Sardinia Island (Italy), 3) Merguellil watershed (Tunisia), 4) Jordan river basin, and 5) the Nile River system (Egypt). The case studies are illustrative and represent situations which deserve special attention, due to their relevance to national and human security. Furthermore, impacts on key strategic sectors, such as agriculture and tourism, will be considered, as well as macroeconomic implications of water availability in terms of regional income, consumption, investment, trade flows, industrial structure and competitiveness. WASSERMed is an interdisciplinary project, which overall aims at all three targets of the call, through the integration of climate change scenarios, holistic water system modelling and interdisciplinary impact assessment, with three main contributions: a) Integration of climate change scenarios, holistic water system modelling. This provides results for reduction of uncertainties of climate change impacts on hydrology in the identified regions; b) Interdisciplinary approach, coupling macroeconomic implications and technical indicators. This provides a better assessment of climate effects to water resources, water uses and expected security risks; c) Proposal of specific adaptation measures for key sectors of the Mediterranean economy. This provides better basis for achieving water security.