An assessment of water management measures for climate change adaptation of agriculture in Seewinkel

To develop appropriate climate change adaptation plans, evidence of the effectiveness of adaptation measures is re-quired. At a regional scale, however, this information is usually lacking. The region of Seewinkel in Austria was taken as a case study because of its extensive agricultural industry and its unique ecosystem of saline lakes. The goal of the study was to provide stakeholders with evidence to support their climate change adaptation process. Adaptation measures discussed by local stakeholders were analyzed to determine their efficacy. A system dynamics (SD) based model was developed to serve as a tool for the water policy analysis and to be used in place of advanced hydrological models. The model was calibrated using observational data and forced with bias-adjusted EURO-CORDEX climate data for three representative concentration pathways (RCPs) (2010-2100). Three parameters in the model were changed to simulate adaptation measures. The results showed that combined measures, increasing irrigation efficiency and chang-ing crops could reduce water demand by an average of 40 %, 23 % and 23 %, respectively, for all RCPs. The local aquifer's level could be increased above the historical average by an average of 0.43 m by combined measures, 0.20 m by increasing irrigation efficiency, 0.20 m by changing crops and 0.06 m by artificially recharging the aquifer.

Automated summary

A case study was conducted in the Seewinkel region of Austria to develop a system dynamics model for water policy analysis and to replace advanced hydrological models. The results showed that combining measures, such as increasing irrigation efficiency and changing crops, could significantly reduce water demand by an average of 40%. Additionally, artificially recharging the aquifer could increase the local groundwater level by an average of 0.06m.