[A-HW30] Hydrology & Water Environment

[AHW30-P05] Similarities and differences among ten global water models in modelling water use

*Camelia Eliza Telteu¹, Hannes Müller Schmied ^1,2, Wim Thiery ³, Guoyong Leng ⁴, Peter Burek ⁵, Xingcai Liu ⁴, Julien Eric Stanislas Boulange ⁶, Lauren Paige Seaby⁷, Manolis Grillakis⁸, Yusuke Satoh ⁶, Oldrich Rakovec⁹, Tobias Stacke¹⁰, Jinfeng Chang^11,5, Niko Wanders¹², Harsh Lovekumar Shah ¹³, Ganquan Mao¹⁴, Aristeidis Koutroulis ⁸, Yadu Pokhrel ¹⁵, Luis Samaniego ⁹, Yoshihide Wada ⁵, Vimal Mishra ¹³, Junguo Liu ¹⁴, Petra Döll ^1,2, Simon Newland Gosling ¹⁶, Jacob Schewe ⁷, Fang Zhao ¹⁷ (1.Institute of Physical Geography, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 2.Senckenberg Leibniz Biodiversity and Climate Research Center, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 3.Department of Hydrology and Hydraulic Engineering, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium, 4.Key Laboratory of Water Cycle and Related Land Surface Processes, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, 5.International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria , 6.National Institute for Environmental Studies, Tsukuba, Japan , 7.Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Potsdam, Germany , 8.School of Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Crete, Chania, Greece , 9.Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Leipzig, Germany , 10.Institute of Coastal Research, Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht, Geesthacht, Germany, 11.Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement, Gif-sur-Yvette, France, 12.Department of Physical Geography, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands, 13.Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, Palaj, Gandhinagar, India, 14.School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China , 15.Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, United States of America , 16.School of Geography, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 17.School of Geographic Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China)

Keywords:global water models, modelling water use, parameterization , Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project phase 2b

Human activity affects river flows and water-related hazards (Veldkamp et al., 2018). Global water models are indispensable tools for the assessment and prediction of water availability and demand under climate change. Through analysis of historical simulations and future projections, we can gain insights about past and current trends, and plan for efficient future water use. This study evaluates ten models that follow a common protocol and contribute with simulations for the global water sector of the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project phase 2b (ISIMIP2b). We analyze the equations used by the models to model the water use. We identify and present similarities and differences among them regarding: (1) how human activity is parameterized by global water models; (2) what are the water withdrawal sources, (3) what are the sinks of the return flows, (4) how many reservoirs are included in the models; (5) what type of reservoirs are included; (6) if and how the reservoir operations are included; (7) how land use, land management and land cover change are represented in the models.

Reference:

Veldkamp, T. I. E., Zhao, F., Ward, P. J., de Moel, H., Aerts, J. C. J. H., Müller Schmied, H., Portmann, F. T., Masaki, Y., Pokhrel, Y., Liu, X., Satoh, Y., Gerten, D., Gosling, S. N., Zaherpour, J., and Wada, Y.: Human impact parameterizations in global hydrological models improve estimates of monthly discharges and hydrological extremes: a multi-model validation study, Environ. Res. Lett., 13, 1–16, https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aab96f, 2018.