Droughts become more frequent and have a more significant impact. This causes a shift in the question asked by society from “How often does a drought occur?” to “How long does the current drought last and how long will it take to recover from it?”. Within the Recover project models are developed that can predict how long drought last and how we can mitigate their impact using adaptive water management.

• dr. Sandra Hauswirth
• Steye Verhoeve MSc

This work falls under the ERC funded project-  A Global Assessment of the Limits of Groundwater Use (GEOWAT). During this project, we aim to determine the physical limits of groundwater withdrawal by providing the first global estimates of fresh groundwater availability - subject to past and future human water use. A high resolution version of PCR-GLOBWB will be used to yield the locations of, and the times when, physical limits of fresh groundwater use will be reached. In addition, we will evaluate how technological strategies may increase the volume of extractable fresh groundwater and promote water table recovery.

• Barry van Jaarsveld MSc
• prof. dr. ir. Marc Bierkens
• dr. Frances Dunn
• dr. Rens van Beek

• Myrthe Leijnse MSc
• Ana Paez Trujillo
• dr. ir. B. (Bram) Droppers
• prof. dr. ir. Marc Bierkens

The summers of 2018 and 2019 have shown that severe droughts pose a major challenge for Dutch water management. Direct consequences due to the water shortages could be observed in various sectors and latest climate projections indicate that these drought events with reduced water availability, lower discharges and groundwater levels will reoccur more often in the future. The past events showed that such drought occurrences bring challenges to water management in the Netherlands, especially with respect to the water distribution. Additional research is needed to understand the vulnerability of the Netherlands during drought periods, increase the preparedness and to counteract and minimize possible drought impacts.

This PhD project, which is funded by Rijkswaterstaat, led by Utrecht University in collaboration with KNMI, Deltares and Wageningen University, combines recent developments in climate simulations, hydrological modelling, seasonal forecasting and machine learning to better estimate drought risks. Developing a method to quantify drought impacts occurring in previous drought events using Machine Learning techniques and Big Data as well as investigating the suitability of the developed method in combination with seasonal forecasting and large-ensembles climate simulations will be part of the project. 
The aim is to develop models that will support future water management decisions in the Netherlands in the short to medium term under changing climate.
All together, the project should help to better map out which water shortages occur in times of drought, which areas are most vulnerable, what are the impacts in these areas, and how we can take measures that help multiple sectors at the same time. By reducing the risk of water scarcity during droughts, we can  prepare the Netherlands better for increasing hydrological extremes, both now and in the future.  

• dr. Sandra Hauswirth

NWO – Rubicon fellowship

Two year fully funded fellowship from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research to gain international experience at a university outside the Netherlands, awarded to early career scientists that have just graduated or are about to graduate.

The objective of this project is to develop an innovative drought forecasting system that integrates hydrological observations, models and seasonal weather predictions to provide seasonal (up to 6 months) drought forecasts for Africa. The project consists of four steps, in which:

1. The potential of satellite observations to monitor drought conditions will be evaluated,
2. The skill of current seasonal weather forecasts for drought forecasting over Africa is determined,
3. Satellite observations and a multi-model approach are used to improve the seasonal predication skill,
4. Information is provided on the potential socio-economic impact of forecasted drought events.

The final outcome will be the first integrated seasonal drought forecasting system that provides information on forecast quality, uncertainty and reliability, potential socio-economic impact, and alerts and warnings for drought events.

• EC - Joint Research Centre Ispra