Abstract
Mountain regions are facing multiple impacts due to climate change and anthropogenic activities. One aspect of these impacts with cross-sectorial importance is the modification of available water quantity due to shifts in precipitation and temperature. This change of water availability will influence a variety of economic activities that still rely on large quantities of water (e.g. ski tourism, energy production, agriculture). The Alps are among those areas where recent events of decreased water availability triggered emerging water disputes and spread of economic impacts across multiple sectors. In order to make our water management systems more resilient, there is a need to unravel the interplays and dependencies that can lead to multiple impacts across interdependent sectors. However, current assessments dealing with climate change usually account for a mono sectoral and single risk perspective.
This study shows an integrative assessment of multi-risk processes across strategic sectors of the Alpine economy. System dynamics modelling (SDM) is applied as a powerful tool to evaluate the multiple impacts stemming from interactions and feedbacks among water-food-energy economic sectors of the Noce river catchment in the Province of Trento (Italy).
The SDM developed for the Noce catchment represents an innovative multi-risk tool, combining outputs from physically based models and probabilistic assessments of water flows. Moreover, this study simulated the water demand from three main sectors relying on the same resource: (i) apple orchards cultivation, (ii) water releases from large dam reservoirs for hydropower production and (iii) domestic and seasonal tourism activities.
Hydrological results have been validated on historical time series (i.e. 2009-2017) and projected in the future considering RCP 4.5 and 8.5 climate change scenarios for 2021-2050 medium term and 2041-2070 long term. By doing so, it has been possible to explore future unsustainable conditions of water supply and demand. Finally, SDM can be used to identify possible adaptation strategies (e.g. water pricing, drip irrigation and regulation) and integrate decision policies scenarios to tackle climate-related water scarcity.