Abstract

The CLARIS LPB Project aims at predicting the regional climate change impacts on La Plata Basin (LPB) in South America, and at designing adaptation strategies for land-use, agriculture, rural development, hydropower production, river transportation, water resources and ecological systems in wetlands. In order to reach such a goal, the project has been built on the following four major thrusts. First, improving the description and understanding of decadal climate variability is of prime importance for short-term regional climate change projections (2010-2040). Second, a sound approach requires an ensemble of coordinated regional climate scenarios in order to quantify the amplitude and sources of uncertainties in LPB future climate at two time horizons: 2010-2040 for adaptation strategies and 2070-2100 for assessment of long-range impacts. Such coordination will allow to critically improve the prediction capacity of climate change and its impacts in the region. Third, adaptation strategies to regional scenarios of climate change impacts require a multi-disciplinary approach where all the regional components (climate, hydrology, land use, land cover, agriculture and deforestation) are addressed in a collaborative way. Feedbacks between the regional climate groups and the land use and hydrology groups will ensure to draw a first-order feedback of future land use and hydrology scenarios onto the future regional climate change. Fourth, stakeholders must be integrated in the design of adaptation strategies, ensuring their dissemination to public, private and governmental policy-makers. Finally, in continuity with the FP6 CLARIS Project, our project will put a special emphasis in forming young scientists in European institutes and in strengthening the collaborations between European and South American partners. The project is coordinated with the objectives of LPB, an international project on La Plata Basin that has been endorsed by the CLIVAR and GEWEX Panels.