Status Report VI

Reporting Period: 01.01.99 – 30.06.99

Partial Report "Integrated Modelling"

Potsdam-Institute for Climate Impact Research

M.S. Krol
A. Bronstert
A. Jaeger

1. Project Objectives and Modifications of the Objectives

The main goals of the integrated modelling are to:

Improve the inter-disciplinary understanding of the causal relationships between water availability and social dynamics

Develop transferable tools for regional integrated modelling

Analyse the sensitivity to climatic variability and possible climate change

Analyse pathways of future developments with respect to sustainability

The development of the integrated model is the main focus of the current project phase. The development and application of integrated scenarios is the main focus of the planned 2^nd project phase. No modifications were made in the objectives of the project compared to the last report and compared to the project proposal.

2. Progress and results

2.1 work progress: scientific and technical description

During the reporting period the prototype version of the integrated model has been continuously improved and extended.

The main improvements involved the explicit coupling of water availability and water demand, the preparation of more detailed soil data for the model and the preparations for coupling an agro-economic optimisation model.

2.1.1 Present status of modules of the integrated model:

The integrated model runs in a geographically explicit mode, where the units are the municipios of the states of Ceará and Piauí, yielding a total number of 332 units. The hydrological and the agricultural modules distinguish as sub-unit three different landscape components (highlands, sloping areas and river valley regions). In the present state, the integrated model consists of the following modules:

CLIMO: climate component; this contains the climate scenarios,

HYMO: water component, simulating the (surface) water balance including water storage facilities, and water demand in the various sectors, where an explicit linkage of these two parts was added.

LAMO: land use module; where the FAO crop model CROPWAT simulates crop yields for the crops considered in the agro-economic optimisation model, presently linked off-line.

SEMO: socio-economic model; no change since the last report.

2.1.2 Workshop ‘Modelling in WAVES’, 15-16 January 1999, Potsdam

The second project-workshop on modelling in Potsdam focussed on the concrete modelling issues and inter-model consistency. Model descriptions of the models developed or used by the various disciplinary groups as well as model testing, validation and application were exchanged.

Model descriptions were gathered to be distributed internally in the project over the Hyper-WAVES web pages.

A final planning and co-ordination of the modelling activities was made, aiming at august 1999 for final delivery of sub-models to be included in the integrated model.

2.1.3 Scenario session at the bilateral project workshop in April 1999, Fortaleza

One of the joint activities in the project is the construction of integrated scenarios of regional development in Ceará and Piauí. The scenario-sketches, prepared by the German scenario group and discussions at a project workshop in 1998, were presented and discussed at a session of one afternoon at the (informal) bilateral project workshop in Fortaleza in April 1999.

Krol, member of the German scenario group, arranged and led the session, presented a general introduction to scenario-studies and one of the reference scenarios. Afterwards, the scenario sketches were discussed in groups, each focussing on a particular scenario.

This scenario session at the workshop was the starting point of the active involvement of the Brazilian side of the project in the construction of scenarios.

2.1.4 Coupling water availability and water demand in the integrated model

One of the coupling problems, addressed in this period of the project, was the explicit coupling of water availability and water demand. Here two coupling issues were studied by Jaeger.

First, the specific allocation of water demand to the sources of available water. NoWUM, the model describing water demand, simulates water demand for the various sectors (domestic, irrigation, husbandry, industry, and tourism), whereas water availability is simulated in HYMO by source (river flow, small açudes, big reservoirs, and groundwater). A first explicit allocation was implemented, allocating fixed fractions of sectoral water demand to the water sources, based on secondary data. Here areas with a smaller and a larger availability of groundwater were distinguished.

Second, the feedback of depletion of water resources on water use was studied. Clearly, the depletion of water resources will affect not only the allocation of demand to the sources, but also the water use itself. Here a first implementation uses an order of priority of water use (drinking water, animal water, and irrigation) to decide which water demand will be satisfied under resource depletion.

2.1.5 Introducing detailed soil data in the integrated model

A significant improvement of the present version of the integrated model will be the inclusion of detailed soil data. Krywkow, put through the interpretation of the digital EMBRAPA map for Ceará at PIK, as assistance to the University of Hohenheim, responsible for this task. The documentation to the EMBRAPA map contains information at a level that is more detailed than the polygons in the map, e.g. orography-related distinctions within the polygon. To allow a complete geographic representation of the information available, a combination of the original digitised map and a digital elevation model and a vegetation map was created in a GIS.

2.1.6 Off-line linkage of integrated model and agro-economic model

The linkage between the natural potentials of crop growth and the actual usage of these potentials is addressed in RASMO, the regionalised agro-economic model in development at the FH Cologne. For the linkage of this model in the integrated model, two problems occurred. First a technical one, concerning the programming software used, and, more important, a methodological one, concerning the representation of variability.

RASMO is written in a specific software-tool for optimisation, GAMS, and can therefore not be included straightforward in the integrated model (written in Fortran). To link the integrated model with RASMO, an interface had to be written, reading and writing GAMS output- and input –files from the integrated model.

More important, the presently foreseen versions of RASMO are capable of optimising farm income given the productivity of all crops, choosing an optimal distribution of the cropping areas and animal husbandry, under restrictions of availability of area and family labour force, demand for food and feed. But the model cannot represent the effect of the uncertain meteorological conditions, i.e. when the farmer decides on the usage of the available area, the weather to be expected is still uncertain, and thus the yields too. In order to still represent the effects of variability, it is assumed that the decisions on land use are being taken, as in RASMO, based on mean climatological conditions, but that the farm income results from the actually achieved yield, depending on the variable weather. In this way, Krol, representing the variability constructed a forward version of RASMO. This forward version was tested in RASMO (with a remaining partial optimisation) as well as in Fortran (without optimisation).

2.2 Partnership

2.2.1 Stay of Dr. M.S. Krol in Fortaleza

As of January 1999, Krol is working as a visiting professor at the Federal University of Ceará (UFC) in Fortaleza. The main activity of Krol at UFC is the promotion of local integration of WAVES in Brazil and the integration of results of the Brazilian scientist in the integrated model. To this end, a number of activities were organised.

As of March, a project seminar at UFC was initiated, meeting twice per month, gathering project members of all disciplines. Each session of the seminar one or two project members present ongoing or finished research, with discussions focussing on the connections between the sub-projects.

After the scenario session at the project workshop in Fortaleza in April, a Brazilian scenario group was formed, with participation from almost all disciplines. This scenario group set as its main goals to contribute in the further development of the reference scenarios, to develop more detailed interpretations of the scenarios for the municipio of Tauá and to discuss the usage of scenarios in local and regional policy–making.

Further notices:

Dr. A. Bronstert replaces Krol as a member of the German management group.

Jaeger replaces Krol as a member of the working group on scenarios.

The Brazilian partners are the meteorological service of Ceará (FUNCEME) and the Federal University of Ceará (UFC).

The Department of Computation of UFC offered Krol a working place and an access to the available computer facilities.

2.3 Exploitation and dissemination of results

The interim results have been presented to the German partners of the project. First results were presented in the international literature [Giessen (Workshop: „Modellierung des Wasser- und Stofftransports in großen Einzugsgebieten" 19/20. November 1998 in Rauischholzhausen bei Gießen), The Hague (24th General Assembly of the European Geophysical Society, The Hague, Netherlands, 19-23 April, 1999)]

Bronstert, A., Güntner, A., Jaeger, A., Krol, M., Krywkow , J. (1999):

Großräumige hydrologische Parametrisierung und Modellierung als Teil der integrierten Modellierung. In: Fohrer & Döll (Hrsg.) (1999): Proceedings des 2. Workshops: „Modellierung des Wasser- und Stofftransports in großen Einzugsgebieten" 19/20. November 1998 in Rauischholzhausen bei Gießen. Kassel University Press (in press)

Bronstert, A., Krol, M., Jaeger, A., Güntner, A., Hauschild, M., Döll, P. (1999):

Integrated modelling of water availability and management in the semi-arid Northeast of Brazil. Physics and Chemistry of the Earth (in press)

3 Project management structure

The management will be realised as planned by the Steering Committee, the Management Group and direct contacts between the involved scientists.

4 Outlook

In the next few months, a first complete version of the integrated model will be finalised. The expected main improvements are: the inclusion of improved soil data in HYMO and LAMO, the on-line linkage of RASMO, the inclusion of an improved parameterisation of migration based on an updated definition of quality of life.

In the second half of 1999, various PIK-scientists will visit Brazil for direct collaboration and planning (Jaeger, Bronstert).

In October, Bronstert will give contributions to the German Day of the Tropics in Berlin.

[IAHS – Birmingham AXEL/ANNE...]

Krol will visit the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI) in São José dos Campos, to build up contacts and discuss contributions of WAVES to the science agenda of IAI.

5 Administrative aspects

Financial situation: The sub-project keeps to its financial plan. A financial re-allocation of several items within the sub-project "integrated modelling" was implemented, in order to conduct the one-year visit of Dr. Krol at UFC (Fortaleza, Brazil). This re-allocation has been approved by the German project supervisor, DLR, as jointly discussed and prepared.

Staff situation: no changes