Climate change and CLIWAT

Climate and Water variability and availability are closely related and affect each other in complex ways.

Research during the last few decades have shown that there’s a severe risk that climate change due to human activities will significantly influence water distribution on earth and e.g. increase the number of droughts and floods, and hence have important consequences for human and environmental health and regional and global economies (Al Gore, Nicholas Stern, FN reports). The CLIWAT project evaluates the effects of climate change on water quantity and quality in selected coastal areas of the North Sea region (Figure 1.1), and provides the necessary scientific basis for adapting to and reducing risks posed to society and nature by a changed climate, and for integrated sustainable coastal zone management.

Figure 1.1 CLIWAT pilot areas

The role of groundwater is often overlooked in the climate change context, but it is an important part of the water cycle, which cannot be ignored when correct estimates of the effects of climate change has to be made.