Researchers assess world's water cycle A major four-year EU-funded project on the world's water resources has just come to an end, and a report on its final conclusions has been published. The Water and Global Change (WATCH) project, which ran from February 2007 to July 2011, received just under EUR 10 million of ... A major four-year EU-funded project on the world's water resources has just come to an end, and a report on its final conclusions has been published. The Water and Global Change (WATCH) project, which ran from February 2007 to July 2011, received just under EUR 10 million of funding under the 'Sustainable development, global change and ecosystems' Thematic area of the EU's Sixth Framework Programme (FP6), and brought together a team of 100 climate scientists from 25 researcher institutes in 14 different European countries. This final report significantly expands scientists' understanding of climate change and land use impacts on the global hydrological cycle. The team hope their findings, presented in a plethora of new data sets, maps, new methods and models, can be used to analyse, predict and manage water resources, floods and droughts worldwide. Rainfall, soil moisture, evapotranspiration rates and river catchment data are presented in 3D maps, with 18 of the world's biggest river systems being covered in significant detail. The main aim of WATCH was to fuse knowledge from the hydrological, water resources and climate communities to analyse, quantify and predict the components of current and future global water cycles and related water resources states, with a view to evaluating uncertainties and pinpointing where global water resources are vulnerable. Dr Eleanor Blyth, from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology in the United Kingdom, the WATCH coordinating institution, explains why this interdisciplinary approach was essential: 'More dependable impact assessments require effective partnerships among research organisations and, importantly, partnerships between scientific disciplines. One critical partnership is that between climate scientists and hydrologists. Yet, in the past, these groups have not worked effectively together. WATCH has changed that.' WATCH results provide the first assessment of the global hydrological cycle on a daily time frame at a 50 km grid-scale resolution for the past (20th century) and future (21st century), as well as a new global analysis of water scarcity. In the report, the team highlight the importance of land use change, which is at least as important as climate change in terms of water resource issues. They also draw attention to the potential vulnerability of the water supply in sub-tropical catchments; here, increasing consumption and changes in climate and land use could combine to produce future decreases in available water by up to 30%. Dr Richard Harding, also from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, says: 'WATCH has produced the most extensive analysis ever of future water resources for the entire world, confirming that the hydrological cycle is changing. WATCH has shown that although there is still substantial uncertainty in our modelling of the future water cycle, as we develop understanding of the driving processes, we will be able to make more confident assessments for the future. The next challenge is to communicate and apply these results within the wider global user community. To manage water resources successfully over the next 5 [to] 10 years you need to start making changes now. The lasting legacy of the results from WATCH will be to make this process easier.' The WATCH team has also put together an educational website that gives both specialists and members of the public the chance to learn more about the global water cycle.For more information, please visit:WATCH:http://www.eu-watch.org/Centre for Ecology & Hydrology:http://www.ceh.ac.uk/ Countries Austria, Czechia, Germany, Denmark, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, United Kingdom