IMPETUS: Improving Predictions of Drought for User Decision-Making

干旱对社会、经济、农业和生态系统产生严重影响。1975年至1976年的英国干旱对英国经济造成了毁灭性的影响，造成农业损失约3500亿英镑，建筑物下沉损失7亿英镑，水务损失4亿英镑（目前的数据经通货膨胀调整）。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。改进对干旱管理的预测（每月到季节性）和规划时间尺度（季节性到十年）对于有效的干旱管理和尽量减少干旱的负面影响特别有价值。干旱是复杂的事件，其影响取决于气象、水文和陆地表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：预测气象干旱（降雨不足）、农业干旱（土壤水分不足）和水文干旱（地表水和地下水减少）、预测干旱对水资源供应的影响和预测干旱管理的影响。所有这些都是不确定的，任何决策的改进都需要考虑预测过程的各个方面。推动动力的重点是气象和水文预报，这些预报与预测干旱期间当地家庭用水需求的创新方法有关。推动力是一个跨学科的提议，汇集了来自气象、陆地表面、地表水和地下水社区的科学家以及来自水需求和预测可用性社区的社会科学家。该项目涉及来自三个NERC研究中心（NCAS， BGS和CEH），四所顶尖大学（牛津，雷丁，纽卡斯尔和南安普顿），气象局和ECMWF的国际领先科学家和社会科学家。该项目旨在改善英国每月到十年时间尺度的干旱预测，这将导致改进决策过程的发展。这将通过改进气象、水文和水需求预报以及如何将它们结合起来进行干旱预报来实现。这将与利益攸关方共同完成，以确保干旱预报与决策相关。推动解决WP2（预测干旱）英国干旱和水资源短缺的呼吁。我们设想，在气象学、水文学、水文气象预报、用水需求模型和干旱预报的可用性方面，该组织将出版一系列具有高影响力的出版物。推动力的成果也将使广泛的利益攸关方受益。这些措施包括向环境署（EA）通报其用于水资源管理的水文模型代表干旱的能力，并进一步加深对关键业务项目（包括水文展望项目）的理解。推动力的成果也将使英国气象局和ECMWF受益，因为它将提高对气象干旱驱动因素的理解，并提出在业务气象预报系统和气候模式中改进干旱表现的建议。最后，“动力”计划的目标是改进每月到十年时间尺度的干旱预测，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，该项目旨在让利益相关者参与进来，评估他们对干旱预测信息的需求，从预测中共同制定干旱指标，以确保它们支持现实世界的决策。通过与利益相关者的初步讨论，已经确定了这方面的具体例子，包括泰晤士水务公司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.