MaRIUS: Managing the Risks, Impacts and Uncertainties of droughts and water Scarcity

缺水对环境、社会和经济的影响是复杂的。它们深受人类选择和对水的竞争要求之间的权衡的影响。英国目前的干旱管理做法在很大程度上是从经验中演变而来的。每一场干旱都以不同的方式考验着机构和社会。然而，这种经验性和启发性的方法是否适合未来的目的是值得怀疑的，因为过去是未来条件的不完整指南，MaRIUS项目将引入和探索基于风险的方法来管理干旱和水资源短缺，借鉴全球经验和其他危害社会和环境的见解。MaRIUS将在真实的案例研究和未来情景的背景下展示如何使用风险度量来为管理决策和社会准备提供信息。调查将在一系列不同的尺度上进行，从家庭和农场到河流流域和国家尺度。精细粒度分析对于了解干旱影响至关重要。在更大范围内的汇总为水务公司、国家政府和机构的关键决策提供了依据。对一系列时间尺度的分析将表明长期规划和短期决策之间的相互作用，以及这对影响和风险造成的差异，MaRIUS项目将开发一套干旱过程和缺水影响的综合模型，以支持基于风险的缺水管理方法。一个新的“事件集”的过去和未来可能的水文气候干旱条件将使干旱情景的广泛测试。将加强流域和国家尺度水文模型中干旱过程的表现，从而能够改进对干旱频率、持续时间和严重程度的分析。将开发用于评估河流和水库中有害水质风险的模型。将加强在河流和沼泽、低地和高地沼泽等湿地生态系统的物种丰富度和生物多样性模型中对干旱影响的描述。将使用农业做法和产出模型来分析干旱对农业的影响，并调查农民可能采取的准备步骤的好处。将通过对家庭和企业进行“自下而上”的研究，并考虑供应链对干旱敏感行业的依赖，分析水资源短缺造成的潜在经济损失。水资源短缺的环境、经济和社会层面将被综合到一个计算机可视化工具（“影响仪表板”）中。这将有助于对影响之间的反馈进行探索性分析。例如，部分由干旱频率驱动的农业土地使用变化反过来又会影响水质和生态系统。跨学科分析将有助于比较采用两种先前存在的干旱管理安排可能产生的结果，（例如用水限制、取水限制）和加强/创新的管理战略（例如使用前景预测、动态关税）。社会科学和利益相关者的参与深深植根于MaRIUS项目，这份报告将通过对主要利益攸关方目前如何理解和管理干旱和水资源短缺的影响以及机构、监管和市场如何塑造这一影响的批判性分析来构建。现在和历史上受缺水影响的社区的第一手经验和“集体记忆”将提供对干旱的社会和文化层面的新理解。项目社会科学家、自然科学家和利益攸关方之间的持续接触将有助于确保MaRIUS项目的产出，包括“影响仪表板”，与他们的需求和不断变化的政策背景相匹配。

Impacts of water scarcity on the environment, society and the economy are complex. They are profoundly shaped by human choices and trade-offs between competing claims to water. Current practices for management of droughts in the UK have largely evolved from experience. Each drought tests institutions and society in distinctive ways. Yet it is questionable whether this empirical and heuristic approach is fit for purpose in the future, because the past is an incomplete guide to future conditions.The MaRIUS project will introduce and explore a risk-based approach to the management of droughts and water scarcity, drawing upon global experiences and insights from other hazards to society and the environment. MaRIUS will demonstrate, in the context of real case studies and future scenarios, how risk metrics can be used to inform management decisions and societal preparedness. Enquiry will take place at a range of different scales, from households and farms to river basins and national scales. Fine-scale granular analysis is essential for understanding drought impacts. Aggregation to broader scales provides evidence to inform critical decisions in water companies, national governments and agencies. Analysis on a range of timescales will demonstrate the interactions between long-term planning and short-term decision making, and the difference this makes to impacts and risks.Underpinning the risk-based approach to management of water scarcity, the MaRIUS project will develop an integrated suite of models of drought processes and impacts of water scarcity. A new 'event set' of past and possible future hydroclimatic drought conditions will enable extensive testing of drought scenarios. The representation of drought processes in hydrological models at catchment and national scales will be enhanced, enabling improved analysis of drought frequency, duration and severity. Models for assessment of the risks of harmful water quality, in rivers and reservoirs, will be developed. The representation of drought impacts in models of species abundance and biodiversity in rivers and wetland ecosystems, such as fens, lowland and upland bogs, will be enhanced. A model of agricultural practices and output will be used to analyse drought impacts on agriculture and investigate the benefits of preparatory steps that may be taken by farmers. The potential economic losses due to water scarcity will be analysed through a combination of 'bottom-up' study of households and businesses, and consideration of supply chain dependence on drought-sensitive industries.The environmental, economic and social dimensions of water scarcity will be synthesised into a computer visualisation tool (an 'impacts dashboard'). This will enable exploratory analysis of feedbacks between impacts. For example, agricultural land use changes, driven in part by drought frequency, will, in turn, influence water quality and ecosystems. The interdisciplinary analysis will enable comparison of likely outcomes arising from applying both pre-existing drought management arrangements (e.g. restrictions on water use, abstraction limits) and enhanced/innovative management strategies (e.g. use of outlook forecasts, dynamic tariffs).Social science and stakeholder engagement are deeply embedded in the MaRIUS project, which will be framed by a critical analysis of how impacts of droughts and water scarcity are currently understood and managed by key stakeholders, and how this is shaped by institutions, regulation and markets. First-hand experience and 'collective memory' of communities affected now, and historically, by water scarcity will provide new understandings of the social and cultural dimensions of droughts. On-going engagement between the project social scientists, natural scientists and stakeholders will help to ensure that the outputs from the MaRIUS project, including the 'impacts dashboard', are matched to their needs and to the evolving policy context.