Abstract: Today’s cities face the challenge of climate change adaptation worldwide. In this context, prevention of damage caused by flash floods plays an important role. This requires a cooperative pluvial flood risk management approach, which includes planning, technical, and administrative measures and involves preliminary flood risk analyses. This article outlines the main components of this risk management approach, which has proven its effectiveness in Europe. The recommendations formulated for this purpose are applicable or adaptable to regions with other constraints, such as China, for example.

Abstract: Both seasonal and annual mean precipitation and evaporation influence patterns of water availability impacting society and ecosystems. Existing global climate studies rarely consider such patterns from non-parametric statistical standpoint. Here, we employ a non-parametric analysis framework to analyze seasonal hydroclimatic regimes by classifying global land regions into nine regimes using late 20th century precipitation means and seasonality. These regimes are used to assess implications for water availability due to concomitant changes in mean and seasonal precipitation and evaporation changes using CMIP5 model future climate projections. Out of 9 regimes, 4 show increased precipitation variation, while 5 show decreased evaporation variation coupled with increasing mean precipitation and evaporation. Increases in projected seasonal precipitation variation in already highly variable precipitation regimes gives rise to a pattern of “seasonally variable regimes becoming more variable”. Regimes with low seasonality in precipitation, instead, experience increased wet season precipitation.

Abstract: ABSTRACT As a result of population growth, economic development and climate change, feeding the world and providing water security will require important changes in the technologies, institutions, policies and incentives that drive present-day water management, as captured in Goal 6.4 of the Millennium Development Goals. Irrigation is the largest and most inefficient water user, and there is an expectation that even small improvements in agricultural water productivity will improve water security. This paper argues that improvements in irrigation water productivity involves a complex and comprehensive rural transformation that goes beyond mere promotion of water saving technologies. Many of the measures to improve water productivity require significant changes in the production systems of farmers and in the support provided to them. Looking forward, water use and competition over water are expected to further increase. By 2025, about 1.8 billion people will be living in regions or countries with absolute water scarcity. Demand for water will rise exponentially, while supply becomes more erratic and uncertain, prompting the need for significant shifts of inter-sectoral water allocation to support continued economic growth. Advances in the use of remote sensing technologies will make it increasingly possible to cost-effectively and accurately estimate crop evapotranspiration from farmers’ fields.

Abstract: By investigating the nitrate, oxygen, nitrogen and argon concentrations and 15N14N ratios in artesian groundwater with radiocarbon ages ranging up to 27,000 yr. a process of very slow denitrification in a confined aquifer is demonstrated. The calculated nitrogenisotope fractionation factor associated with this reaction is comparable to that reported for bacterial cultures in vitro and in vivo.