IWRA Proceedings

AbstractThe overall objective of the study is to enhance capacity to carry out a harmonized integrated water resources management (IWRM). For headwater river systems of alpine mountain massifs, impacts from climate change will be modelled and appropriate mitigation measures will be developed in twinning Upper Danube and Upper Brahmaputra River Basins. The focus of the research study emphasizes on natural systems responses on climate change like glacier retreat, permafrost thawing, avalanches and flooding and their socio-economic implications and threats for the affected population. Therefore, the relevant knowledge needs to be enhanced concerning key policy areas and strategies to improve the adaptive capacities of communities. The present state is evaluated through a hierarchical approach in four levels: • Assessment and holistic analysis of the natural environment to derive the interactive dynamics of the system components. • Assessment of the system’s human dimension accounting for water related issues of socio- economic vulnerability and environmental stress with respect to water allocation and demand, and considering the political structures and policies pertaining to the basins. • Analysis of present, traditional and conceptual IWRM practices and their potential for adaptation to cope with impacts of changing flow regimes. • The development of scenarios relying on downscaling predictions from Global Circulation Models to a basin scale coupled with a DPSIR (Driving forces, Pressures, States, Impacts and Responses) approach. The spatial concept in both mapping the vulnerability and building adaptive IWRM scenarios is the regionalization approach of Response Units.