ADO

Changes in our climate are reflected in more years with above-average temperatures, increased evapotranspiration, and unfavourable rainfall distribution. Since the early 1980s, the number of drought-affected areas in Europe has been steadily increasing. Areas that were not affected in the past now face increased exposure. Over the past decade, a tendency towards stronger and more frequent droughts in the Alpine region has been observed. Moreover, lowland regions far beyond the Alps suffer from missing water from the Alps. Despite extensive damages in the last decades, drought continues to be managed as a crisis by implementing emergency procedures and urgent measures. However, this approach usually fails to achieve the most sustainable solutions. Scarcity of water creates a strong conflict of interests between stakeholders, which means that national and local decision-makers face several new challenges and are forced to increase their drought preparedness and shift from reactive to proactive drought management. In collaboration with practice partners, 6 case studies are being implemented, to demonstrate the use of the information provided by the ADO Platform for drought management. The lessons learned from these case studies will be fed into developing a best practice guide for efficient and timely drought management, minimizing conflicts among water users, and for coordinated governance in case of a drought event. Existing national drought management practices revealed several shortcomings. We address this issue within the scope of the ADO Project by preparing recommendations and guidelines for proactive and efficient drought management with improved risk preparedness tailored to the Alpine Space.

drought_management_systems.pdf

In preparation of the ADO Platform the Project consortium sees an opportunity to create a state of the art tool that could help the effected alpine communities and ecosystems to prepare and mitigate the effects of drought. But it is also clear that the Project products need to be specifically tailored to the needs and requirements of these communities so that this goal can be achieved. For this reason, a participatory approach to the creation of the Platform and other products has been envisioned

2nd_newsletter.pdf

Water scarcity and water related conflicts are becoming an increasingly worrying topic in the Alps. Special attention has to be put on drought in the Alpine Space since drought here has far reaching effects through much of Europe. This topic will be addressed in the Alpine Drought Observatory Project which aims to improve the current drought monitoring and forecasting capabilities in the Alps, building on the understanding of drought impacts in this region and help design better drought management practices, improve policies and increase preparedness.

1st_newsletter.pdf

The Alpine Drought Observatory aims to prepare the Alpine space for future climate challenges. Read more about how this will be achieved in the project poster and flyer below. 

project_poster_ado.pdf

project_flyer_ado.pdf