Reducing the Vulnerability of Societies to Water Related Risks at the Basin Scale (Proceedings of the third International Symposium on Integrated Water Resources Management, Bochum, Germany, September 2006). IAHS Publ. 317, 2007, 273–277.

Water resources management and water availability in the Elbe River basin under conditions of global change

STEFAN KADEN¹, MICHAEL KALTOFEN¹ & HAGEN KOCH²

1 WASY GmbH, Institute for Water Resources Planning and Systems Research, Waltersdorfer Straße 105, D-12526 Berlin, Germany

so.kaden@wasy.de

2 Brandenburg Technical University, PO Box 10 13 44, D-03013 Cottbus, Germany

Abstract Global change poses a challenge to long term planning in water management. Plausible and consistent scenarios are required, as well as an assessment of possible climatic, technological and social developments and their impact. These problems, and a possible adaptation strategy, are subjects of research within the GLOWA Elbe II project. One important component of this multi-disciplinary project is the analysis of conflicts related to water availability for the whole Elbe River basin (about 150 000 km²). A detailed water management model for the whole Elbe River basin, including the Czech part of the basin, has been developed. The amount of water use is partly determined by modules, which consider economic changes. The model also includes assessment functions providing results by monetary and non-monetary indicators. The simulation software used is the model WBalMo^®.

Key words global change; long term planning; modelling; water resources management