Global hydrological modeling to analyze the effects of climate, land use & socioeconomic change on the world's water resources

气候和全球变化最严重的后果之一是改变水资源的时空分布。需要采取缓解和适应战略，让社会和环境为可能减少的水供应、日益不稳定的河流或更频繁的洪水和干旱等极端事件做好准备。这些战略，反过来，需要的情景和建模方法已成为关键的科学工具，以估计未来的水文conditions.The拟议的研究项目将侧重于开发一个综合的方法来分析全球变化（即气候，土地利用和社会经济变化）对水资源和水文的各个方面可能产生的影响。麦吉尔大学将建立一个最先进的建模框架，以模拟大区域（包括全球覆盖范围）的当前和未来水文条件。建模结果的目的是超越现有的空间和时间分辨率，无论是通过应用精细的建模概念或降尺度技术。在验证、调整和增强建模框架后，它将被应用于解决关键的科学和政策相关问题，例如：气候、土地利用和社会经济变化将如何影响区域和全球水资源的可用性和需求？这些变化对气候变化的反馈是什么？未来水的压力和稀缺性会增加吗？水力发电的潜力将如何变化？哪里的洪水和干旱风险会增加？需要预留多少水以满足环境流量要求？自然水文状况将发生什么样的重大变化？我们如何评估大规模流域提供的环境服务的价值？这一跨学科项目的结果可以提供有价值的投入（和比较框架），以促进我们对大尺度水文和区域水资源的理解。特别是，研究结果可用于为其他模型的开发提供信息，如加拿大气候模拟和分析中心的加拿大陆地生态系统模型。

Among the most critical consequences of climate and global change are alterations in the spatial and temporal distribution of water resources. Mitigation and adaptation strategies are needed to prepare both society and the environment for potentially diminishing water supplies, increasingly erratic river flows, or more frequent extreme events such as floods and droughts. These strategies, in turn, require scenarios and modeling approaches which have emerged as key scientific tools to estimate future hydrologic conditions.The proposed research project will focus on developing an integrated approach to analyze possible impacts of global change (i.e. climate, land use, and socioeconomic change) on a variety of aspects of water resources and hydrology. A state-of-the-art modeling framework will be established at McGill University to simulate present and future hydrological conditions over large regions (including full global coverage). Modeling results are aimed to exceed existing spatial and temporal resolutions, either by applying refined modeling concepts or downscaling techniques. After validating, adapting and enhancing the modeling framework, it will be applied to address key scientific and policy relevant questions such as: How will climate, land use and socioeconomic changes affect regional and global water availability and demand? What is the feedback of these alterations to climate change? Will water stress and scarcity increase in the future? How will the potential to generate hydropower change? Where will the risk of floods and droughts increase? How much water has to be reserved for environmental flow requirements? What critical alterations in the natural hydrological regime will occur? How can we assess the value of environmental services provided by watersheds at large scales?The results of this interdisciplinary project can provide valuable input (and a framework for comparisons) to promote our understanding of large-scale hydrology and regional water resources. In particular, the findings can be used to inform the development of other models, such as the Canadian Terrestrial Ecosystem Model of the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis.