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Introduction
WATCH, a highly successful EU FP6 (European Union Sixth Framework Programme) project, ran from 1 February 2007 to 31 July 2011. Coordinated by the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, the €13m project brought together 25 partners from the hydrological, water resources and climate research
communities in 14 countries.
The WATCH teams analysed, quantified and
predicted the components of the global water cycle and related water
resources – for the past, present and future. They evaluated the
associated uncertainties, and clarified the vulnerability of global water
resources within key societal and economic sectors. They also agreed common terminology and
protocols for data exchange, providing a strong foundation for future work at a global
scale.
Results
Key outcomes of the project include:
- A significant expansion of our understanding
of the water cycle,providing the first assessment of the global hydrological cycle on a daily time-frame for the 20th and 21st centuries, and produced a global analysis of water scarcity
- A new appreciation of the
relative importance of the drivers of changes in
river flows and water resources – climate change, demographic and
land-use change – and how they interact
- Identification of the the potential vulnerability of water supply in sub-tropical catchments where changes in climate, land use and increasing consumption combine to produce future decreases in available water by up to 30%
- New insights into the importance of evaporation for the global water cycle
- Exemplar global datasets have been developed, models have been assessed and improved , and new methodologies created to assess the frequency and severity of floods and droughts
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Data
WATCH outputs include 54 technical reports and over 200 papers in peer-reviewed journals.
The new consolidated WATCH datasets
are now available to a worldwide research community for use in
future regional and global studies. They include:
- Datasets for the whole of the 20th century (1901-2001) and 21st century (2001-2100)
- Detailed maps for 1985-1999
- Drought and flood atlases, new global and regional analyses of major
floods and droughts of the 20th century, and an outlook for the 21st
century
- Thirteen models of the terrestrial hydrological cycle and water resources were compared, tested and improved through model comparison. Please see the WATCH WaterMIP (Water Model Intercomparison Project – external link) webpages for more information.
Please click here for access to WATCH datasets via CEH's Information Gateway.
WATCH Outreach
- The outputs of the project are summarised in the WATCH Outreach Report (link to 5.3MB pdf).
- The project has set up the Water and Climate Change learning website, which focuses on WATCH's legacy, describes the water cycle, and provides access to environmental data, maps etc.
- You can also see extracts from interviews with key WATCH researchers on the WATCH YouTube Channel (external link).
More Information
Please see the external links in the right-hand column and below:
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