Modelling coupled human-water systems: Characterising human-water interactions and their impacts on future water scarcity

预计到2050年，由于气候变化以及人口增长和社会发展的需求增加，英格兰将面临严重的供水短缺。因此，至关重要的是，我们要预测水资源未来可能发生的变化，以确保为饮用、粮食、能源生产和社会发展提供充足的水供应。尽管人水相互作用（如水库蓄水和灌溉）对淡水资源的影响，只有稀疏的数据，以前可用于人类用水，这些相互作用往往被忽略在水文模型或粗糙的空间分辨率表示。该博士学位将提供对人水相互作用及其对河流流量的影响的新认识，以提供对政策制定者和决策者至关重要的（未来）水资源短缺的强有力评估。该项目的总体目标是量化人类用水和气候变化对英国未来水资源短缺的影响，通过开发新的工具来模拟地方和国家尺度的人水耦合系统。这将包括以下目标：建立一个综合建模框架，在多个尺度上将水文气候过程与人水系统结合起来。这将通过将（1）地下水和地表水抽取，（2）水库和（3）回流纳入DECIPHeR来实现（Coxon等人，2019）。从历史水文气候和人类用水数据中描述人类用水的行为模式，以研究自然-人类水通量之间的相互作用和反馈。利用高分辨率的区域气候模拟集合（即UKCP 18、MaRIUS干旱事件集）、能够模拟潜在气候变化情景（即STORM）的随机降雨发生器和社会经济数据集的未来水需求情景，对人类用水和气候对未来水资源短缺的影响进行项目。将利用敏感性分析技术确定人类用水和气候变化对未来水资源短缺的利弊、相互作用和重要性。我们希望这些目标的发展符合学生的兴趣，并为学生完善的研究目标，因为他们的所有权的研究发展。学生将有机会在Wessex Water进行为期三个月的实习，以确定如何将学生博士期间开发的工具和水资源短缺预测用于未来水资源规划的决策。

By 2050, it is projected that England will be facing severe water supply shortages due to climate change and increasing demand from growing populations and societal development. Consequently, it is vital that we predict how water resources may change in the future to ensure adequate water supplies for drinking, food, energy production and societal development. Despite the impact of human-water interactions (such as reservoir storage and irrigation) on freshwater resources, only sparse data have previously been available to characterise human-water use and these interactions are often neglected in hydrological models or represented at coarse spatial resolution. This PhD will deliver new understanding of human-water interactions and their impacts on river flows to provide robust assessments of (future) water scarcity that are essential for policy and decision makers. The overall aim of this project is to quantify the impacts of human water use and climate change on future water scarcity across the UK by developing novel tools for the simulation of coupled human-water systems at both local and national scales. This will encompass the following objectives: Build an integrated modelling framework that couples hydro-climatic processes with human-water systems across multiple scales. This will be achieved by incorporating (1) groundwater and surface-water abstractions, (2) reservoirs and (3) return flows into DECIPHeR (Coxon et al, 2019). Characterise behavioural patterns of human-water use from historical hydro-climatic and human-water use data to examine the interactions and feedbacks between natural-human water fluxes over time. Project human-water use and climatic impacts on future water scarcity using high-resolution, regional climate simulation ensembles (i.e. UKCP18, MaRIUS Drought Event Sets), stochastic rainfall generators capable of simulating potential climate change scenarios (i.e. STORM) and future water demand scenarios from socio-economic datasets. Trade-offs, interactions and the importance of human-water use and climate variability on future water scarcity will be determined using sensitivity analysis techniques. We expect these objectives to evolve in line with the student's interests and for the student to refine the research objectives as their ownership of the research develops. The student will have the opportunity to do a three month placement at Wessex Water to determine how the tools and water scarcity projections developed during the student's PhD can be used for decision making on future water resource planning.