Manuel António Ferreira Araújo,Rui Miguel Soares Pereira,Gaspar José Brandão Queiroz de Azevedo Machado,Naim Haie, University of Minho, Civil Engineering Department, naim@civil.uminho.pt
ABSTRACT
The Iberian Peninsula is very susceptible to climate change and various studies have predicted a simultaneous rise in temperature and fall in precipitation for this century. More than one billion USD was the damages of the 2004/2005 drought in Portugal, mostly because of short term emergency measures rather than long term adaptive management. This study, using genetic algorithms, was carried out at a region of the Sabor sub-basin of the trans-boundary river basin of Douro to better understand the impacts of such changes on its water resources system and agricultural production. Any intervention in Sabor is controversial because it is one of the few relatively pristine areas of Douro. The idea is to devise adaptive schemes for situations of drought and water scarcity that are less intrusive and are cost optimized. The study of the scenarios shows that by better management, the water productivity can increase with less water use.
Keywords: Adaptive management, Water scarcity and drought, Transboundary Douro river basin