Final Report on the "Expert meeting on water manager needs for climate information in water resources planning (Geneva, 18-20 December 2006)

Water and Climate



Final Report on the "Expert meeting on water manager needs for climate information in water resources planning (Geneva, 18-20 December 2006)

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Recognizing that climate information is presently not widely used by water managers, the expert meeting aimed to identify the current state of climate information that potentially could be used by water managers and looked into the perception of water managers with regard to the use of climate information that would suit their requirements. The meeting also served as a scoping platform to identify current uses of climate information in water management and to provide an overview at which scales climate information has the greatest potential for use now and the near future. Likewise, gaps and deficiencies in present knowledge and research were identified. The meeting showed that climate predictions and seasonal climate outlooks at present have the highest potential to be more readily used while predictions of climate variability and change, while inherently useful, are not yet ready to be applied from an engineering point of view and other techniques, such as using multi-model ensembles and downscaling techniques are required to improve prediction skills to reduce large uncertainties. The expert meeting concluded that all possible information should be processed in such a way that it would allow the development of adaptation processes and activities even though there are large uncertainties still prevailing. Major outcomes of the expert meeting were:

• Participants encouraged the development of demonstration projects based on a project
proposal developed by WMO “Bringing Climate Information to Water Managers” and
• Participants developed an agenda and work plan for a WMO initiative on “Improvement in
Water Resources Planning through the Use of Climate Information”.