Climate Variability and Change—Hydrological Impacts (Proceedings of the Fifth FRIEND World Conference held at Havana, Cuba, November 2006), IAHS Publ. 308, 2006, 418–423.


 

Climate change impacts and responses in the Czech Republic and Europe

 

OLDŘICH NOVICKÝ, LADISLAV KAŠPÁREK & MARTINA PELÁKOVÁ

 

T. G. Masaryk Water Research Institute, Podbabská 30, CZ–160 62, Prague 6, Czech Republic

oldrich_novicky@vuv.cz

 

Abstract The paper discusses the development of European policies and measures aimed at securing water demands by replenishing, saving and protecting the European water resources. Recent European policies and legislation give preference to soft solutions and measures for water quality protection, rather than hard solutions, such as construction of water storage reservoirs, which were formerly used for meeting water demands. A case study from the Czech Republic describes results showing possible reservoir storage capacities which could be necessary in future for compensation of climate change impacts on flows, and particularly on low flows. The required storage capacities are derived from drought deficit volumes calculated from monthly flow series simulated for natural climate conditions and for the conditions affected by climate change. For the derivation of the deficit volumes, the discharge whose probability of exceedence is 70% (Q70%,) was used as the threshold.

 

Key words deficit volume; BILAN model; climate change; water resources; reservoir storage capacity; EU water legislation; Water Framework Directive