Exploring future changes in water resources everywhere around the world

Due to climate change, people across the globe must adapt to changing water resources. This requires knowledge about the potential changes they might need to confront. Together with the French company AGEOCE, we developed a web application that allows them to explore how, on all continents of the Earth, total renewable water resources, renewable groundwater resources, and evapotranspiration are projected to change in the future under three greenhouse gas emissions scenarios. Representing the simulation results of several global hydrological models provided in the framework of ISIMIP3b , the Climate Change Impact on Water Resources Explorer provides the range of potential changes of these variables in grid cells that cover an area of approximately 2000 km². 

The users of our explorer can view maps and also get “local insights" by clicking on the location of interest. Then, they obtain a chart that shows the likely range of changes between the reference period 1985-2014 and three future periods. For example, people in Palermo, Sicily, who want to adapt their groundwater use to the changing climate can click on their city and obtain the chart below (Figure 1) to learn about projected changes in groundwater recharge in the winter season (December-January-February). If they are risk averse, they may want to adapt to the strongest decreases shown, otherwise possibly to the median change.