EXECUTIVE SUMMARY - UNESCO World Heritage

Pre-proposal No 5 ADAPTATION TO AND MITIGATION OF ADVERSE WATER-RELATED IMPACTS IN VULNERABLE
SYSTEMS – ENHANCEMENT OF EFFECTIVENESS AND EFFICIENCY OF ADAPTATION STRATEGIES
AND MEASURES UNDER UNCERTAINTY
Priorities of FP7 and WSSTP SRA addressed by objectives:
Besides the specifics of the NMS and ACC the proposed call line, in its objectives is closely related to the priorities defined in preliminary
FP7 (of June 2006), as well on the WSSPT-SRA documents. In fact, adaptation and mitigation aspects are embedded in several places in
the referred documents. The single most important linkage of the call line to the FP7 relates to the Theme 6, Environment (including Global
Change), Activity I. Climate change, pollution, and risks, Priority Pressures on environment and climate, Subpriority 6 -Response strategies:
Mitigation and adaptation. Moreover links also exist to Priority Natural hazards, Subpriority 4 - Risk management and mitigation. The call line
is also concerned with Activity II. Sustainable management of resources - Priority Conservation and sustainable management of natural and
man-made resources and Activity III - Environmental technologies. The call line also drew on the WSSTP SRA, Pilot theme 6: Proactive an
corrective management of extreme hydro-climatic events and on the Generic RTD, parts G.6.1 Forecasting. The hydro-meteorological
aspects; G.6.2 Warning systems, monitoring network and crisis management; G.6.3 Long term flood mitigation; G.6.4 Short and long-term
drought management. Other relevant linkages are with enabling RTD: E.6.1 Regional-scale flooding; E.6.2 Local scale multiple hazard management
and E.6.3 Drought, and river flow management.
Suggestion for most appropriate type of project:
• Collaborative Projects of different size
Existing expertise
• Ecology and ecohydrology
• Hydrology
• Risk assessment
• Hydrological Modelling
• Biomonitoring
• Protection of water resources
• Water management in agriculture
• Soil ecology
Required expertise
• Sociology
• Economy
• Spatial planning and engineering
• Expertise covering sectoral issues
Gaps in the knowledge
As an important result from the meeting an assemblage of the existing gaps in knowledge was compiled from the perspective of the New Member
States and Candidate Countries:
• Need for approaches for assessing levels of confidence and uncertainty of adaptation strategies and identifying ways of efficient communicating
these to the decision-makers and stakeholders
• Integrated models of total water consumption for incorporation into decision support tools and evaluation of uncertainty and confidence levels
for the development of credible decision support systems in data sparse and low tech regions.
• Adapting stochastic water cycle concepts, methodologies and models especially with respect to extreme events (e.g., hydro-climatological
predictions, projections, design values and associated uncertainties) to non-stationary conditions and transferring them into the management,
planning, and design of water decision systems and infrastructure.
• Methods for managing conflicting demands on domestic and transboundary water resources for water consumption, ecological functions,
industrial uses, and transport resulting from changes of water consumption patterns and trends in course of major climatic events, adaptation
invoked technological innovation and economic conditions.
• Inventory of data for regional and sectoral studies, especially for data for which regional and river basin district bases repositories do not exist
(e.g., water demand, use and consumption).
• Innovative ways to address sector-specific problems related to climate changes (e.g. rainwater capture and usage, adaptation of cooling
water systems to climate change, organizational and legal solutions for implementation of adaptation and mitigation measures, regulatory function
of natural (pristine) and close-to-nature ecosystems in the adaptation context, risk assessment and propagation mechanisms)
39