IRES: International Paradigms for Managing Hydrologic Extremes in a Shifting Climate

Water flows across national borders, unfettered by political distinctions, while water's role in economic and ecological vitality is more important than ever. However, water management, research, and engineering still largely operate within local homegrown paradigms. Water managers and researchers are typically familiar with their own methods, sites, and toolkits.

However, local focus has consequences, and opportunities are lost when we do not learn from successes and failures in other regions. Sharp and Leshner (2014) argue that "the search for solutions needs to draw upon the talents and innovative ideas of scientists, engineers, and societal leaders worldwide to overcome traditional and nationalistic paradigms that have so far been inadequate to meeting these challenges." The goal of this project is to contribute to US expertise in solving future water-related challenges.

UC Davis and IHE Delft will join forces to bring three cohorts of US advanced graduate students to Europe and provide them immersive experiences in critical analysis of differing international approaches to water science, policy, and management. Year 1: international approaches to flood-risk management, year 2: drought and groundwater management, and year 3: freshwater ecosystems in a climate of growing extremes.

STEM workforce development outcomes will include students trained in: collaborating across international boundaries on international problems and in international settings, integrating across multiple disciplines and across international paradigms, to integrate water science into management and policy-making, team-based problem solving, and trained to promoted an inclusive and supportive environment that advances diversity and inclusion as core values. Overall, this project will contribute to US expertise in solving future water-related challenges domestically and worldwide.

The project has three themes.

1. International approaches to flood-risk management: Flood magnitudes, frequencies, and impacts are becoming more severe in most areas as a warming climate increases atmospheric precipitation and storm intensity. The field of flood risk management integrates flood risk assessment and its reduction to a tolerable level using diverse technical and social measures, leading to increased resilience and adaptation capacity.

Integrated flood risk management aims to reduce the human and socioeconomic losses caused by flooding while at the same time taking into account the benefits from floods and the use of flood plains or coastal zones.

2. International approaches to drought and groundwater management: Groundwater resources have long been used for domestic, irrigation, and industrial water supplies where access to surface water is lacking, either seasonally, long-term, or due to unusual climate events leading to relative lack of precipitation and runoff (drought). Dwindling groundwater resources not only threaten long-term sustainability of agricultural production and domestic water supplies, they also cause expensive and sometimes unaffordable increases in pumping costs, well outages, land subsidence, seawater intrusion, and water quality degradation, among others.

Climate change leads to changing patterns and intensity of drought, of groundwater recharge, and of water demands on groundwater reservoirs.

3. Freshwater ecosystems in a climate of growing extremes: Watersheds and river environments are complex ecological systems where geologic structures interact with hydrologic processes to support ecological functions and associated aquatic and riparian habitats. As the chief source of renewable water supply for freshwater ecosystems and societal use, rivers and wetlands provide vital supporting, provisioning, regulating, and cultural ecosystem services.

Riparian zones account for more than 75% of terrestrial animals in the western U.S. The global extent and severity of ecosystem decline has stimulated a worldwide response in the formation of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) and launch of the UN Decade on Restoration (2021-2030). Like ecosystems themselves, addressing the threats requires scientists capable of working across disciplines, technologies, and landscapes.

To understand the complex ecology of freshwater systems, students must understand their interdisciplinary and integrative nature, ultimately learning to think synergistically about biological, physical, chemical, and anthropogenic interactions.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.