The future is transient: Barriers and opportunities for improved UK water resource climate change assessments using the enhanced Future Flows and Groundwater (eFLaG) climate service products

Abstract

UK water resources face a number of challenges when planning for an uncertain future. Climate change impacts and what future droughts might look like can be a significant contributor to this uncertainty. Recent and potential future developments (e.g. ever-finer resolutions) in climate modelling offer the potential for running bias-corrected transient future scenarios through hydrological, hydrogeological and water supply models, providing users with droughts of differing severity, frequency, spatial extent and duration to those experienced historically, incorporating changes over time and an understanding of climate model uncertainty. The recent enhanced Future Flows and Groundwater (eFLaG) project sought to demonstrate a climate service using these transient scenarios, with the aim of enhancing the resilience of the water industry to drought events and complementing existing approaches. The project demonstrated the use of this transient climate change information within a water resource setting, using a variety of hydrological and water resource models to help illuminate potential gaps and issues with such an approach. If we are to realise the potential of transient scenarios, a number of barriers – both scientific and organisational – need to be overcome. We present a road map for the future based on outcomes from the eFLaG project, as well as ways the eFLaG projections could be used to improve system resilience in the present.