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Decision Support for Mainstreaming Climate Change Adaptation in Water Resources Management

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Abstract

Climate change adaptation (CCA) has recently emerged as a new fundamental dimension to be considered in the planning and management of water resources. Because of the need to consider the already perceived changes in climate trends, variability and extremes, and their interactions with evolving social and ecological systems, water management is now facing new challenges. The research community is expected to contribute with innovative methods and tools to support to decision- and policy-makers. Decision Support Systems (DSSs), have a relatively long history in the water management sector. They are usually developed upon pre-existing hydrologic simulation models, providing interfaces for facilitated use beyond the limited group of model developers, and specific routines for decision making (e.g. optimization methods). In recent years, the traditional focus of DSS research has shifted away from the software component, towards the process of structuring problems and aiding decisions, thus including in particular robust methods for stakeholders’ participation. The paper analyses the scientific literature, identifies the main open issues, and proposes an innovative operational approach for the implementation of participatory planning and decision-making processes for CCA in the water domain.

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Notes

  1. See: http://climate-adapt.eea.europa.eu/en/web/guest/adaptation-support-tool/.

  2. Scopus search for TITLE + ABS + KEY(“decision support system” AND water).

  3. Worth to mention at this regard is the fact that successful implementations of existing tools are usually of limited interest for scientific journals, which search instead for innovative contributions. This is indeed one of the main problems of any effort aimed at producing a state-of-the-art report on DSS implementations and their impacts, since it requires to complement literature review with search of grey literature and internet sources and direct contacts with experts in the field.

  4. More information about NetSyMoD and mDSS can be found at: www.netsymod.eu.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Venice Centre for Climate Studies at Dipartimento di Economia, Università Ca’ Foscari, and Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici (CMCC), Canneregio 873, 30121, Venezia, Italia

    Carlo Giupponi

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  1. Carlo Giupponi
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Correspondence to Carlo Giupponi.

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Highlights

• Climate change adaptation (CCA) and water management should be integrated

• Decision support tools are necessary to deal with the complexity of the problems

• Guidelines for the identification of strategies exist but they need operational solutions

• Decision support (methods and tools) can provide those solutions and facilitate implementation

• The paper presents an operational procedure to integrate CCA and water management

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Giupponi, C. Decision Support for Mainstreaming Climate Change Adaptation in Water Resources Management. Water Resour Manage 28, 4795–4808 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-014-0776-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-014-0776-y

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