Impacts of global change on water-related sectors and society in a trans-boundary central European river basin – Part 2: From eco-hydrology to water demand management

Abstract

This second part of the paper presents the details of the eco-hydrological model SWIM simulating the natural water supply and its coupling to WBalMo, a water management model.

Based on the climate scenarios of the STAR model, SWIM simulates the natural water and matter fluxes for the entire Elbe River area. All relevant processes are modelled for hydrotopes and the resulting discharges are accumulated in subbasins. The output data are input for the water management model WBalMo and the quality models Moneris and QSim.

WBalMo takes storage management, inputs and withdrawals into account and analyses how demands by industry, power plants and households will be met at changing natural supply conditions. Some of the first results shall be presented here.