The Danube Water NexusBuilding the evidence base of the

Water–Agriculture–Energy-Ecosystems Nexus

Giovanni Bidoglioand the many colleagues across

JRC-IES, IPTS, IET

• Matching availability and demand of water needs to be evaluated in terms of competing objectives of the different sectors

• Look at the implications for water resources allocation

• Agriculture and energy as the priority sectors in which water saving and efficiency should be improved in order to avoid scarcity

Agriculture

Environment

Tourism Drinking water

Industry

Energy

Sizing future water gapsProjected future water demand and available supply

• Deliver integrated impact assessments of water resources in the face of increasing trends of global population, urbanisation, pollution, over-exploitation, climate change

• Focus on Europe and Africa: Danube-Nigerriver basins and the Mediterranean region as pilot areas

Objectives of the project

The Danube as pilot area to support the implementation of the Danube Strategy and test actions identified in the

2012 Impact Assessment of the EU Blueprint to Safeguard Europe’s water resources

Sharing efforts towards common end products

1. Scenarios of environmental and economic impacts of alternative water allocation measures across competing water-using sectors, including an assessment of the provision/valuation of ecosystem services

2. Methodology for modelling of water resources in the Danube river basin, integrating quantity, quality, ecology and hydro-morphology, in coordination with other tools at national and river basin level and extension to non-EU countries of the Danube Region

3. Supporting efforts of countries and international cooperation bodies in the implementation process of the WFD and planning of medium and long-term actions for the 2nd cycle of River Basin Management

Biophysical assessment

Surface hydrology /

groundwater hydrogeology

Water and agricultural land

management

Water quality, ecology, hydro-

morphology

Environmental and economic impacts of alternative options of Water Allocation:

Target 2030-2050

Benchmarking regional

knowledge

Link to the Danube Reference Spatial Data Infrastructure

DRSDI

Danube Water-Agriculture-Energy-Ecosystems Nexus (Danube Water Nexus)

Multi-objectives optimization

and uncertainty-sensitivity analyses

Economic assessmentEnergy, industry, agricultural demand / production / trade /

prices / income effects of water use

Non-market valuation of ecosystem

services

Survey of existing water uses

Socio-economic survey

Water quality survey

Analysis of tradeoffs and stakeholder negotiation

Participatory scenario buildingLand use scenarios

LUMP

Agro-economic scenarios

CAPRI

Energy scenarios

POLES

Bias-corrected climate scenarios

ENSEMBLE

Marcos Gimeno Gutiérrez and Roberto Lacal Arántegui, 2013

Assessing water uses for hydropower generation

Draft

Acquiring water quality data

N runoff

Wastewatertreatment

Stream routing, lakes & reservoirs

along river network5km grid

in-stream decay processes

N leaching

P leaching

EPIC

P runoff

A suite of biophysical models

Surfacerunoff

Percolation

Preferential flow

LISFLOOD

Land cover, plant growth

Nutrients

Source apportionment

GREEN

Managementpractices

Groundwaterextraction

Water use by various sectors

Agriculturalmanagement

• Kinematic wave routing of river discharge using the LISFLOOD calibration parameterization (also used in the operational EFAS flood warning system)

• Routines to simulate the effects of lakes and reservoirs

• Daily routing of surface and river N and P (as a function of flow velocity)

• Removal of Nitrogen and Phosphorous (as a function of water temperature, water depth and flow velocity, sediment characteristics derived from geological maps)

• Other physical and (bio)chemical processes, e.g. pesticides

• Geospatialregressionbetween pressures from agriculture, wastewatertreatment plants and water quality measurements

• N and P retention in rivers and lakes

Residential water

0

2

4

6

8

50 60 70 80 90 100 110

euro

cent

/m3

water use in (m3)

Residential water demand

Cost functions

Wastewater treatment

WWTP cost as function of share tertiary treatment

Irrigation water

Total quantityof nitrogenretainedin river

catchments

Calculate the size (ha) 

of constructedwetlands thatremove an 

equal N amount

Calculate the costs forconstructingwetlands of

thissize

Free Water System (FWS) Subsurface Flow System (SSF)

Nature providing multiple ecosystem servicesValuation of water purification services (Nitrogen retention) by

using replacement costs of constructed wetlands

• CAP scenarios (post-2013 CAP reform, abolition of sugar quota)

• Trade policy scenarios (trade liberalization; bilateral trade agreements)

• Baseline uncertainty scenarios (contribution to DG AGRI outlook )

• Biofuel policy scenarios (biofuel quota obligations; tax policy; import tariffs; availability 2nd generation biofuels)

• GHG emission scenarios (mitigation scenarios, abatement scenarios)

• Yield effects of climate change

Common Agricultural Policy Regionalised Impact Modelling System: CAPRI scenarios

Energy scenarios

A world simulation model for the analysis of energy systems and their global environmental impacts to 2050

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

2000 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050

Gt

CO

2

Energy savings

Fossil fuel switch

Renewable energies

Nuclear energy

Carbon sequestration

GHG reduction scenario

avoid

ed e

mis

sions

Typical applications

•Global energy demand/supply scenarios with high regional detail

•Global GHG emission reduction pathways

•Technology outlooks

•Impacts of technological change and R&D

Decomposition of global CO2 emission reductions between base/reduction case

Source: POLES model; Russ et al., 2007

POLES: Prospective Outlook on Long Term Energy Systems

Water resources allocation: the need for tradeoff analyses

Optimising targets for efficient water use in terms of impacts of selected combinations of measures

and costs of achieving a desired objective

Optimal tradeoff

32%

93%

57%

Clean water Water efficiency in agriculture

•New wastewater treatment plants•P-free detergents•Optimum fertiliser and manure application

•N-fixing winter crops•Change of diet•Infrastructure for removal of emerging pollutants

•Irrigation management•Change crop practices•Convert land to grassland•Grassed waterways•Aquifer recharge and water table management

Water retention measures Water supply and recycling•Riparian wetlands along rivers•Introduce flood retention polders•Afforestation in mountainous and riparian areas

•Greening urban environments•Remeandering•Constructing dams and reservoirs

•Water efficiency in power generation•Improvement in industrial processes•Leakage reduction and water-efficient buildings

•Desalination•Water reuse and recycling•Large-scale water-transfer infrastructures

Measures affecting water availability and demand

Optimisation including evaluation of costs of the measures is run for e.g. region 10 (Atlantic catchments of France) for a package of 5 mixed scenarios

• A - Afforestation• CP -Crop practices• IE - Irrigation efficiency• UG - Urban greening (25%)• WSH - Water saving in households• LR - Leakage reduction (50%)

Which effects for what measures?

21 regions based on river basins,

climatology, socio-economic

conditions

Co

st o

f im

ple

men

tati

on

Improvement of environmental flow

Effects of measures on e.g. environmental flow

A UG CP IE WSH LR0.084 0.120 0.992 0.484 0.661 0.3600.084 0.087 1.000 0.484 0.659 0.3600.082 0.089 1.000 0.487 0.659 0.3600.138 0.089 0.995 0.516 0.660 0.3630.084 0.120 0.992 0.484 0.661 0.3600.023 0.114 0.929 0.485 0.652 0.3200.036 0.115 0.925 0.484 0.734 0.3230.023 0.126 0.879 0.474 0.652 0.308

A UG CP IE WSH LR0.351 0.766 0.541 0.041 0.131 0.1630.333 0.785 0.511 0.029 0.167 0.161

Non-efficient strategies

Efficient strategies

Relative impacts of measures on flooding for region 11 (Danube)

A joint endeavour• Building on existing experience in the Danube

region• Twinning with national projects and international

initiatives

Conference Bratislava

World Water Forum 2015,

Korea

Final report Database

development

Scenarioexpert

meeting

Economicexpert

meetingModelling

Tradeoffanalyses

Biophysicalexpert

meeting

Thank you for your attention