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. ir. Niko Wanders
• Steye Verhoeve MSc

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. ir. Niko Wanders