ALM UNDP

The overall objective of the project is to address the threats to human security and well-being currently posed by water scarcity and water quality degradation in developing countries and the role of groundwater management and protection in alleviating such threats.

The main objective of the research project is to adapt and apply vulnerability assessment methods to determine the vulnerability of communities who face freshwater supply problems, with an emphasis on groundwater. Groundwater can play a major positive role for the livelihoods of communities facing water supply shortages but can also be a threat when the resource becomes degraded.

The design of the system puts the focus on the constant integration of available and newly generated data from all different disciplines. This enables user-oriented analyses and custom designed querying to develop sustainable solutions in the field of resource management.

Possible applications of the system are:

• * Monitoring of floods and droughts;
• * Evaluation of flood and drought risk, damage potential and actual damages;
• * Analyses of water quality, pollution and sediment load;
• * The improvement of flood prediction via remotely sensed precipitation information;
• * Detailed adaptation of surface and sub-surface discharge models;
• * Information of landcover- and landuse changes;
• * Observation of settlement development, surface sealing and population growth.

 CLICO pursues the following two objectives:

• To understand and model the relationships between hydro-climatic hazards, climate change vulnerability, human security and conflict, on the basis of theoretically-informed, comparative empirical research.
• To map international and national policies for security and adaptation in water resources and hazard management, and develop a policy model for security against hydro-climatic hazards (“hydro-security”) in the region, applicable to the UN, EU and national states.