Integrated Water Management Impacts of Extreme Climatic Conditions

Question:-

What are the impacts of extreme climatic conditions on the water flow of the Rhine and its catchment areas?

Answer:-

In these days of globalisation, integrated management of water is considered as an essential procedure to promote a coordinating process for the development and management of water resources in the world. It assists in social and economic welfare equitably without neglecting the ecological sustainability. However, this project highlights the importance of integrated water process in Rhine watershed, as the climatic conditions and rainfall patterns of this region are highly fluctuated, according to the weather conditions, especially in summer and winter.

The river Rhine is one of the important rivers of the European continent and provides the water sources in Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Besides, 1320 km long with 225000 km square catchment area of Rhine mainly influences a lot by various human activities, like the construction of the canal and dykes (Brenner et al., 2020). It has been started prior to the middle age with the development of crop production. Thus, the deterioration of water quality due to the uncontrolled industrialisation culminates several problems, associated with the availability of drinking water. Basically, the overall degradation of this river is presumably the reason for the reduction ecological balance of this region. It can be mentioned that the low-water conditions of Rhine characterise the natural occurrence of hydro-meteorological conditions in its catchment areas. These low water events create adverse ecological impacts in the summer months (Iksr.org, 2020).

The ICPR (the International Commission for the Protection of the Rhine) implements Rhine 2040 programs to eradicate the future challenges, associated with the water quality, climatic changes, and low-water flow in the catchment area of Rhine. This implementation plan aims in the reduction the micro-pollutants input by 30% into this river and its tributaries by the year 2040 (Iksr.org, 2020). This holistic approach will have more resistant to the negative influences of climate change by creating a sustainable and integrated water management process. However, The "Rhine 2040" programme, approved by the 16th symposium of Rhine Ministers in Amsterdam on February 13th 2020, with concrete purposes, including floodplains restoration, the enhancement of fish passability and micro-pollutants reduction in Rhine water bodies, is entirely in line with the approaches of the European Union (Iksr.org, 2020).

Climate Change Prognosis for the Rhine Region

The extreme climatic changes of the European Continent are one of the major problems, which adversely impacts the hydrological cycle of the Rhine Region. van Pelt & Swart (2011) have mentioned in their study that this extreme event primarily impacts on the water discharge of Rhine and sometimes generates water uncertainties to local, regional and international scales. In the year 2003, the heat-wave in Europe enormously affected the water resources, which reports the low water discharge in several parts of the Rhine region. However, the water level of this river in the areas of Germany and the Netherlands reached extremely low. In contrast, in 2002, the opposite events happened, and the areas, stretching from Germany, Romania and Austria, faced severe floods. Hardenbicker et al. (2016) viewed that the climatic changes in the Rhine region also influence the enhancement of water temperature. It indicates the lowering down of water quality by provoking changes in the biological process and food web of this region and Rhine catchment area. Thus, the extremity in the meteorological variables, including air humidity, colour, turbidity, global radiation, pH and colour facilitates the biological invasion in the river Rhine and its tributaries.

The article, published in ICPR (Iksr.org, 2020), discussed the climatic changes affecting the water discharge pattern of the river Rhine which presumably influences flooding and low water flow. In addition, the recharging of groundwater is also affected by this consequence, and thus the water quality of groundwater is eradicated. However, the evaluation of the ICPR result predicts 20% more discharges in the winter months along with 10% lower water discharge in the summer months in the entire Rhine catchment.