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

气候和全球变化的最严重后果之一是改变了水资源的时空分布。需要采取缓解和适应战略，为社会和环境做好准备，以应对可能减少的供水、日益不稳定的河流流动或更频繁的极端事件，如洪水和干旱。这些战略反过来需要已成为评估未来水文条件的关键科学工具的情景和建模方法。拟议的研究项目将侧重于开发一种综合方法，以分析全球变化(即气候、土地利用和社会经济变化)对水资源和水文学各个方面的可能影响。麦吉尔大学将建立一个最先进的建模框架，以模拟大范围(包括全全球覆盖)目前和未来的水文条件。通过应用改进的建模概念或缩小尺度技术，建模结果的目标是超过现有的空间和时间分辨率。在验证、调整和加强模型框架之后，它将被应用于解决与科学和政策相关的关键问题，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的水资源供应和需求？这些变化对气候变化的反馈是什么？未来水资源紧张和稀缺会加剧吗？水力发电的潜力将如何变化？哪里会增加洪涝和干旱的风险？需要预留多少水来满足环境流量要求？自然水文状况将发生哪些重大变化？我们如何评估大尺度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宝贵的投入(和一个比较的框架)，以促进我们对大尺度水文学和区域水资源的了解。特别是，这些发现可用于其他模型的开发，如加拿大气候建模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.