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Evaluation of the effect of climatic variations on the recharge of aquifers in southern European catchments

Objetivo

The essential aim is to evaluate the feasibility of using
simulation models to predict likely modifications to recharge of
groundwater aquifers induced by climate change.


The first phase of the project is a validation of models used to
predict the transport of water in the soil to a groundwater table
under the combined effect of real climatic inputs and plant
growth on existing field and climatological data. In the second
phase the models will be used with climate data provided by
Global Circulation Models for different scenarios.

Within the first phase two main approaches will be developed:

At the local scale: Development of a
simulation procedure to model the effect of change of climatic
inputs on the
growth and the water balance of a cropped soil; a sensitivity
analysis to focus on crucial model parameters and model input;
and finally the validation of the model for different sites
instrumented to monitor continuously the transport of water in
the unsaturated zone of the soil.

At the large scale: A distributed model will be applied to the
simulation of runoff and infiltration processes at the annual or
seasonal timescale. This will done for one or two of the
experimental sites equipped and monitored to obtain spatial
information. The major aim of the proposed analysis will be the
evaluation of the sensibility for the assesment of groundwater
recharge to the influence of subsurface flow at the scale of a
watershed, taking into account the various sources of
contribution. This will be done through the use of the European
Model SHE, coupled with a Geographic Information System (GIS) to
support the large amount of data requested by a distributed model
of natural systems.

The second step will be to use the models in connection with
climatic data provided by Global Circulation Models for different
scenarios in
terms of CO2, temperature, radiation and rainfall changes.
Two different approaches will be used: 1)
a local, deterministic approach of the plant response to climate
change (CO2, air temperature, rainfall) coupled with a model for
unsaturated water transport in soil, and 2)
a "hydrologically oriented" GIS model at the scale of a
watershed, where climatic changes will be essentially affecting
the evapotranspiration, simulated through application of the
Penman-Monteith equation.

Combined with these two different approaches, and within each, a
high priority will be given to study of methodological aspects -
in terms of mathematics - such as numerical model development;
sensitivity analysis; parameter estimation by the use of adjoint
models; and optimal methods of comparing model output with data.

Convocatoria de propuestas

Data not available

Régimen de financiación

CSC - Cost-sharing contracts

Coordinador

UNIVERSITE JOSEPH FOURIER - GRENOBLE 1
Aportación de la UE
Sin datos
Dirección
Rue de la Piscine 1023, Domaine Universitaire
38041 GRENOBLE
Francia

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Coste total
Sin datos

Participantes (4)