816342 Possible impacts of climate change on water resources
- Type
- Lecture
- Semester hours
- 2
- Lecturer (assistant)
- Koch, Franziska , Mehdi-Schulz, Bano , Formayer, Herbert , Schulz, Karsten
- Organisation
- Offered in
- Sommersemester 2025
- Languages of instruction
- Englisch
- Content
-
This lecture series introduces the climate and hydrological systems with a particular focus on their interactions at the local and global scales. Development of future climate scenarios and their impacts on the water resources sector will be highlighted. The course integrates information from the fields of meteorology, hydrology, agriculture, forestry and alpine hazard research. The lectures provide information on:
- climate and weather at different spatial scales (including past and future trends)
- water cycle and water balance components and their interactions
- global and regional climate models and weather forecast systems
- soil, vegetation, atmosphere interactions, with an emphasis on evaporation processes
- examples of climate change impact / adaptation studies with relevance to the water sector.
- Objective (expected results of study and acquired competences)
-
After participation in the course, the students will be able to:
•explain the coupled atmospheric-hydrologic system;
•identify the boundary conditions of different climate change scenarios;
•describe the impact of climate factors (precipitation, temperature) on evapotranspiration, infiltration, runoff processes and cryosphere;
•discuss the impacts of climate change on agriculture, forestry, alpine risks, and related hydrological aspects (e.g. irrigation, hydropower capacity, snow cover and tourism, wood production, etc.);
•interpret the hard and soft facts in climate change discussions.
•provide evidence-based explanations to counter the arguments of climate change deniers
You can find more details like the schedule or information about exams on the course-page in BOKUonline.