Identification

Title

Reservoir governance in world's water towers needs to anticipate multi-purpose use

Abstract

Mountains, said to be the world's water towers, are central for the provision of downstream water demands. This provision service is strongly challenged by climate change associated with changes in runoff amount and seasonality caused by the retreat of glaciers, rising snow lines, and changes in precipitation. One potential adaptation strategy is the construction of new water reservoirs or the adjustment of current reservoir management strategies. These strategies need to account for various water uses originating from sectors and governments with different economic interests. Here, we investigate governance processes leading to reservoir management strategies ignoring downstream water needs in one of the most important water towers of the world, the European Alps. We assess why governance processes can lead to a coordination gap between an upstream reservoir and downstream water needs. We show that downstream water deficits could potentially be covered through an upstream reservoir under mean and partially under extremely low inflow conditions. However, these hydrological conditions were neglected in the governance processes. The decision-making when issuing the new reservoir concession was influenced by (a) a lack of knowledge and of an appropriate reservoir-management study, (b) an interest to increase renewable energy production, (c) a focus on environmental agreements in the participatory process, and (d) economic interests. Our analyses provide factors, which need to be considered when designing governance processes for the management of reservoirs in world's important and vulnerable water towers. We conclude that immediate action is required toward balancing upstream and downstream water needs in governance processes.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7474f7t

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2021-01-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact