river – Progress in Research

Water resources around the globe are under increasing stress. Among other factors, climate change, rising food and energy demand, and improving living standards have led to a six-fold increase in global water withdrawals over the last century, with significant consequences for water quality and availability, ecosystem health, biodiversity, as well as social stability.

The Environmental Intelligent lab of the Politecnico di Milano is part in the SOS-Water Project – Water Resources System Safe Operating Space in a Changing Climate and Society. It will set out the boundaries within which the Earth’s capacity to provide life-support systems for humanity is not endangered, and humanity’s capacity to adapt to environmental changes is not overburdened. Crossing such thresholds or tipping points in the complex Earth system could result in abrupt and irreversible ecological change.

To safeguard a reliable and sufficient water supply for humans and ecosystems in the future, it is therefore essential to define an SOS for global water resources under changing conditions.

By advancing and linking water system models with models from sectors such as agriculture and energy, biodiversity, or sediment transport, the SOS-Water Project aims to lay the foundations for a holistic assessment framework of water resources across spatial scales.

Based on five case studies of river basins in Europe and Vietnam – the Jucar River Basin in Spain, the Upper Danube region, the Danube and Rhine River deltas, and the Mekong River Basin – an interdisciplinary team of researchers will develop a multidimensional SOS for water. The framework will enable the assessment of feedback loops and trade-offs between different dimensions of the water system and help address pressing global, regional, and local challenges.

In addition to going beyond state-of-the-art water systems modeling, the project will develop a comprehensive set of indicators to assess and monitor the environmental, social, and economic performance of water systems.

A strong emphasis will also be put on participatory research and inclusive stakeholder engagement. The participating researchers will collaborate with regional and local authorities, water user representatives, non-governmental organizations, and citizens to co-create future scenarios and water management pathways.

By streamlining water planning at different levels, it can be ensured that water allocation among societies, economies, and ecosystems will be economically efficient, socially fair, and resilient to shocks.

The project consortium consists of ten partners from eight countries in Europe and Asia: International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (coordinator), Universiteit Utrecht, Universitat Politècnica de València, Politecnico di Milano Forschungsverbund Berlin E.V., FutureWater, Institutul National de Cercetare-Dezvoltare pentru Geologie si Geoecologie Marina, Southern Institute for Water Resources Planning Eutema Research Services, Aalborg Universitet Eidgenoessische Anstalt Fuer Wasserversorgung, Abwasserreinigung und Gewaesserchutz. The scientific coordinator for our university is Prof. Andrea Castelletti, of the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering.

The Mekong Delta in Vietnam could be almost completely submerged by sea water by the end of the century unless we take urgent action. In a paper published in Science magazine, an international research team, including the Politecnico di Milano, has identified concrete actions to prevent this economically crucial and densely populated area ending up under water.

Most of the 40,000 km² of the Mekong Delta lies two metres below sea level, and is therefore vulnerable to rising oceans caused by global warming. In addition, local actions such as over-pumping groundwater, mining sand for use in the construction industry and the rapid development of hydropower threaten the future of Southeast Asia’s most productive rice fields. The research team, which includes the Politecnico, argues that only concerted action by the six countries in the Mekong basin (China, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam) and better management of water and sediment within the delta could prevent this outcome.

There is scientific evidence identifying the processes that threaten the continued existence of the Mekong Delta and how these processes could be controlled and mitigated.

The team identified six measures that would significantly increase the survival of delta.

The dams could be designed to allow better sediment passage
The dams could be placed strategically to reduce their downstream impact, or replaced with wind and solar farms, where possible
Sediment mining should be strictly regulated and the use of Mekong sand could be reduced through the use of sustainable building materials
Intensive agriculture in the Mekong Delta should be re-evaluated in terms of sustainability
Natural solutions for coastal protection should be implemented on a large scale along the coasts of the delta

All of these measures are feasible and have precedents in other parts of the world.

Despite the effectiveness of these measures, particularly if implemented in unison, the scientific community agrees, there are significant hurdles to their implementation. Some of these actions would be in conflict with the vested interests of certain local players, such as the sand mining industry and hydropower plants,
Professor Andrea Castelletti, co-author of the study and full professor of Natural Resources Management at the Politecnico di Milano.

Implementing the measures will require the involvement of national governments and international actors (banks and development agencies), as well as new actors, such as the private sector and civil society, as Castelletti reminds us:

The measures would require coordination among the countries, which would have to agree that sustaining the Mekong Delta is an important objective of regional policy.

The paper on Science

Tag: river

SOS-Water project begins

Saving the Mekong Delta from rising sea levels