ROBUST WATER RESOURCES MANAGEMENT UNDER CLIMATIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL UNCERTAINTY

water resources;climate change;uncertainty;robust decision making;not listed

Shortridge, JulieHobbs, Benjamin F. ;

Johns Hopkins University

关键词: water resources;    climate change;    uncertainty;    robust decision making;    not listed;   

Others  :  https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/bitstream/handle/1774.2/40262/SHORTRIDGE-DISSERTATION-2016.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

瑞士|英语

来源: JOHNS HOPKINS DSpace Repository

【 摘 要 】

Climate change is expected to have dramatic impacts on the water resources sector, and there is increasing concern that some degree of adaptation will be required to ensure sustainable water provision in many regions of the world. However, adapting to future climatic conditions is challenged by the considerable uncertainty and disagreement surrounding projections of future hydrologic conditions, particularly at local scales relevant for decision making. Furthermore, many argue that these impacts cannot be confidently represented probabilistically, resulting in uncertainty that confounds traditional approaches for decision support under uncertainty. In the face of these challenges, a number of methods have been developed to better characterize and make decisions in the face of climatic uncertainty. The objective of this dissertation is to critically evaluate methods for impact assessment and decision support in the water resource sector, with a particular emphasis on deep uncertainty surrounding climatic and environmental conditions. This issue is explored through the evaluation of four research questions:1. How does the choice of modeling approach for empirical streamflow simulation contribute to bias and uncertainty when predicting climate change impacts?2. How does Robust Decision Making (RDM), a method largely developed in the water resource and climate adaptation field, compare to other methods for risk assessment under deep uncertainty that have been developed in the risk analysis field?3. How does the method used to aggregate multiple criteria impact the results of the scenario discovery process within the RDM framework?4. How can methods such as RDM, which generally still rely on complex simulation models and detailed climate model projections, be adapted to data-scarce regions where these models and projections may not be available?By providing a systematic and thorough evaluation of novel methods for climate change impact assessment and adaptation, this dissertation ultimately aims to improve our ability to create robust, sustainable water infrastructure in the face of highly uncertain future climate conditions. Additionally, the use of the Lake Tana basin in Ethiopia as a case study for three of the above questions has led to important applied contributions to infrastructure planning in data-scarce regions of the developing world.