Climate Exchange

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An integrated climate service for the

transboundary river basin and coastal

management of Germany

Professor Dr H Moser, Dr J Cullman, Dr S Kofalk, Dr S Mai and Dr E Nilson, Federal Institute of Hydrology, Germany;

and S Rösner, Dr P Becker, Dr A Gratzki and K-J Schreiber, German Meteorological Service

ll infrastructure planning in water resources manage-

ment, waterways engineering, flood protection, and

coastal defence requires knowledge of meteorological,

hydrological and oceanographic parameters on a climate scale.

Since the planning horizon of such infrastructure projects spans

from decades to a century and beyond, information about

historical and future climate changes is of utmost relevance.

The KLIWAS programme (KLIWAS – Impacts of climate change on

waterways and navigation - Searching for options of adaptation) provides

an integrated climate information service for the management of trans-

boundary river basins and coastal regions in Germany. It was initiated

as a contribution to the German Strategy for Adaptation to Climate

Change

. The KLIWAS initiative provides climatological data and

assesses climate impacts for the following sectors: water regime, water

resources management; coastal and marine protection; biological diver-

sity; fishery; and transport infrastructure. KLIWAS serves as a knowledge

base for stakeholders, like the Federal Waterways and

Shipping Administration, and for all others concerned with

one of these sectors. The activities are coordinated by the

German Federal Institute of Hydrology (BfG) on behalf

of the German Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban

Development and are closely linked to services provided by

the German Meteorological Service (DWD).

Identifying user needs and expectations in the

water sector

The outcome of the departmental climate-related

hydrological and oceanographical service is driven

by stakeholders involved in the management of river

basin and coastal regions. To identify the stakeholders,

water authorities from inside and outside Germany are

informed, for example through the direct involvement of

KLIWAS in international river commissions or through

organization of regular meetings with politicians, water

managers and waterway users (such as KLIWAS Status

conferences and KLIWAS stakeholder workshops).

We benefited from experiences and the common

understanding built by the implementation of the

European Water Framework Directive (EU-WFD). The

EU-WFD summarizes much of the European experi-

ence on pollution control, water quality and ecosystem

management, and it represents a comprehensive way to

ensure that there is enough clean water for different uses,

and to avoid disasters like flooding and droughts. Besides

there are traditional responsibilites and roles within

water management in a state of a federal structure like

Germany, with its decision and participation processes of

which we take advantage to set up our climate services.

Stakeholders (including the European Commission,

the German Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and

Urban Development and its Waterways and Shipping

Administration, several other ministries of the Federal

German Government and the federal states and their

executive agencies, representatives from shipping, ports

and industry consulting engineers, water management,

environmental protection, nature conservation, and

academia, primarily from the field of climate change

impact research) are in contact with the KLIWAS consor-

tium to fulfil their needs for climate change related

ater

The focus areas of KLIWAS are the basins of the rivers Rhine, Danube and

Elbe and the coastal areas of the North Sea

Source: BfG