Alp-Water-Scarce

Water Management Strategies against Water Scarcity in the Alps

The main challenges of this project are to create local Early Warning Systems against Water Scarcity in the Alps based on sound and perennial monitoring and modeling and anchored strongly and actively within a Stakeholder Forum linked across comparative and contrasting regions across the Alps. The Early Warning System is based on the linkage and improvement of field monitoring and assemblage of qualitative and quantitative data derived from anthropogenic water use in selected pilot regions in France, Italy, Austria, Slovenia and Switzerland.

The work carried out within the Alp-Water-Scarce project has resulted in a set of recommendations based on the case studies described. Common to all these recommendations are the needs to preserve the water resources of the Alps for future generations, to meet increasing water demand, and to cope with climate change-induced stress on those resources. The strong commitment of public institutions to cooperate at regional, national, and transalpine levels and a common understanding of the terms "water scarcity" and "drought" are the preconditions for the implementation of long-term measures to address water scarcity. The experience of Alp-Water-Scarce has shown that learning from each other by identifying and analyzing challenges related to water resource problems on a transalpine level can be very fruitful.