Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
important hinterland for its agricultural prosperity, the Maghreb region and Near
East. Thus improved water management can have short- and long-term impacts
linked to the regional, national and international scale.
The maintenance of a meteorological and environmental monitoring and measur-
ing network in Mediterranean mountain regions could fill some important missing
links for the World Meteorological Association (WMO), the United Nations Envi-
ronment Programme (UNEP), the European Environment Agency and the Alpine
Convention. The close links of these organizations to users and stakeholders should
ensure the end-user-friendly proposition and monitoring of adaptation strategies.
Within the framework of Alp-Water-Scarce, a project aiming to create an early
warning system against water scarcity and to improve watershed management,
some first steps have been made in this direction. Certain physical and socioe-
conomic factors in Mediterranean mountain regions could be optimized through
decision-making processes, for example by optimizing water demand and avail-
ability, which influences water quantity and in turn water quality in downstream
regions. By proposing the sharing of responsibilities between upstream and down-
stream water users, the availability and quality of water can also be improved. This
is particularly true for the mountainous Mesta/Nestos basin at the Bulgarian-Greek
boundary, the Meri¸/Maritza river between Greece and Turkey, or the more complex
situation of the Upper Jordan valley. Since snow seasonality already limits summer
and autumn discharge, water strategies taking into account seasonal rationalization
and groundwater replenishment need to be proposed for the future. In addition, due
to steadily increasing mountain tourism, the rationalization of water consumption,
during both summer and winter, is required particularly during the arid months and
in geographically confined regions such as islands. Socioeconomic tools such as
full recovery cost pricing in the water sector can contribute to the improvement of
water resources management and optimal use of water storage.
Water- and resource-intensive technologies with high water losses by evapora-
tion, such as the production of artificial snow for skiing, have to be subject to strict
regulation. Conflicts between artificial snow production and drinking water demand
are already occurring during low-discharge conditions in the winter months on a lo-
cal scale in the Alps and Pyrenees and could rapidly escalate as a problem in other
drier Mediterranean mountain zones. Also, the water quality of reservoirs storing
water for snow production in mountain valleys is the cause of increasing concern
as temperatures rise and good quality water sources become limited. Subsequently,
drinking water collection zones can become contaminated by poor quality water
derived from melting artificial snow. Since temperature is going to become more
and more of a limiting factor for snow depth as well as artificial snow production,
the energy and water consumption for snow making should be closely surveyed in
the future.
Considering that climate change will impact the quantity and seasonal distribu-
tion of snow-derived discharge, dam reservoirs may more often function at their
capacity limits in the future. Strategies proposing the changeover from pure energy
to agricultural production will become necessary. In future, the regulation of mini-
mal discharge in mountain rivers should not be restricted merely to energy demands
