IMPETUS: Improving Predictions of Drought for User Decision-Making

干旱对社会、经济、农业和生态系统造成严重影响。1975-76年的英国干旱对英国经济造成了毁灭性的影响，给农业造成了约35亿英镑的损失，对建筑物造成了7亿英镑的下沉损失，对水务行业造成了4亿英镑的损失(目前的数据经通胀调整后)。前瞻性规划对于管理干旱的影响至关重要，因为及早采取行动使公共供水和农业公司等利益攸关方能够抑制需求并有效管理日益减少的水资源。改进干旱管理预报(每月到季节)和规划时间尺度(从季节到十年)对于有效管理干旱和最大限度地减少干旱的负面影响非常重要。干旱是复杂的事件，其影响取决于气象、水文和陆面因素以及水的需求和管理。因此，干旱预报有许多组成部分：预报气象干旱(降雨不足)、农业干旱(土壤水分不足)和水文干旱(地表水和地下水下降)，预测干旱对可用水的影响，并预测干旱管理的影响。所有这些都是不确定的，决策的任何改进都需要考虑预测过程的所有方面。PURCESS侧重于与预测干旱期间当地生活用水需求的创新方法相联系的气象和水文预报。IMPETUS是一项跨学科的建议，汇集了气象、地表水、地表水和地下水社区的科学家以及来自水资源需求和预测可用性社区的社会科学家。该项目有来自三个NERC研究中心(NCAS、BGS和CEH)、四所顶尖大学(牛津大学、雷丁大学、纽卡斯尔大学和南安普顿大学)、英国气象局和欧洲气象局的国际领先科学家和社会科学家参与。动力旨在改进对英国干旱的预测，从每月到十年的时间尺度，这将导致改进的决策过程的发展。这将通过改进气象、水文和水需求预测以及如何将它们结合起来产生干旱预测来实现。这将与利益攸关方一起完成，以确保干旱预报与决策相关。PURSORT解决了英国干旱和缺水呼吁的WP2(预测干旱)。我们预计PURSIGNCE将在气象学、水文学、水文气象预报、水需求建模和干旱预报的可用性方面产生一系列影响深远的出版物。推动的结果也将使广泛的利益攸关方受益。这些措施包括向环境局(EA)通报EA用于水资源管理的水文模型代表干旱的能力，以及进一步了解支撑关键业务项目的能力，包括水文展望项目。推动成果还将使气象局和欧洲气象中心受益，因为它们更好地了解了气象干旱的驱动因素，并就改进干旱在业务气象预报系统和气候模型中的代表性提出了建议。最后，PROGRESS旨在改进从每月到十年的干旱预报，这将使利益攸关方能够更好地抑制需求，更有效地管理日益减少的水资源。特别是，PURCESS旨在让利益攸关方参与并评估他们对干旱预报信息的需求，共同从预报中产生干旱指标，以确保它们支持现实世界的决策。已经通过与利益攸关方的初步讨论确定了这方面的具体例子，包括泰晤士河流域的降水预报和农业部门的土壤湿度预报。

Droughts have severe impacts on societies, economies, agriculture and ecosystems. The 1975-76 UK drought had a devastating effect on the UK economy causing an estimated £3,500M loss to agriculture, £700M of subsidence damage to buildings and a £400M cost to the water industry (present day figures adjusted for inflation). Forward planning is critical for managing the impacts of drought, since early action enables stakeholders, such as public water supply and agricultural companies, to curb demand and to effectively manage diminishing water resources. Improved forecasts on drought management (monthly to seasonal) and planning timescales (seasonal to decadal) would be exceptionally valuable for effective drought management and for minimising the negative impacts of droughts.Droughts are complex events, with impacts dependent on meteorological, hydrological and land surface factors as well as on water demand and management. Consequently, drought forecasting has many components: forecasting meteorological drought (deficit of rainfall), agricultural drought (soil moisture deficit) and hydrological drought (decline in surface water and groundwater), forecasting the consequences of drought for water availability and forecasting the effects of drought management. All of these are uncertain and any improvement in decision-making needs to consider all aspects of the forecast process. IMPETUS focuses on meteorological and hydrological forecasting linked to innovative methods for forecasting local domestic water demand during drought.IMPETUS is an interdisciplinary proposal that brings together scientists from the meteorological, land surface, surface water and groundwater communities and social scientists from the water demand and forecast usability communities. The project involves internationally-leading scientists and social scientist from three NERC Research Centres (NCAS, BGS and CEH), four leading universities (Oxford, Reading, Newcastle, and Southampton), the Met Office and ECMWF. IMPETUS aims to improve the forecasting of UK drought on monthly to decadal timescales, which will lead to the development of improved decision-making processes. This will be achieved by improving meteorological, hydrological and water demand forecasts and how they are combined to produce drought forecasts. This will be done in conjunction with stakeholders to ensure that drought forecasts are relevant for decision making. IMPETUS addresses WP2 (Forecasting Drought) of the UK Droughts and Water Scarcity call.We envisage IMPETUS producing a range of high-impact publications in meteorology, hydrology, hydro-meteorological forecasting, water demand modelling and the usability of drought forecasts. The outcomes from IMPETUS will also benefit a wide range of stakeholders. These include informing the Environment Agency (EA) on the ability of the hydrological models used by EA for water resource management to represent drought, and furthering the understanding that underpins key operational projects, including the Hydrological Outlooks project. IMPETUS outcomes will also benefit the Met Office and ECMWF through an improved understanding of the drivers of meteorological drought and recommendations for improving the representation of drought in operational meteorological forecast systems and climate models. Finally, IMPETUS aims to improve the forecasting of drought on monthly to decadal timescales, which will enable stakeholders to better curb demand and more effectively manage diminishing water resources. In particular, IMPETUS aims to engage stakeholders and assess their needs for drought forecast information, co-producing drought metrics from forecasts to ensure that they support real-world decision-making. Particular examples of this have already been identified through initial discussions with stakeholders including precipitation forecasts for Thames Water and soil moisture forecasts for the agricultural sector.