M.A. Mimikou Μ.Α. Μιμίκου
Climate Hydrochemistry and Economics of Surface - Water Systems (CHESS)
1998-2001

Sponsored by the EU, ENVIRONMENT & CLIMATE, DG XII

Introduction
The CHESS project (Climate Hydrochemistry and Economics of Surface - Water Systems) is a multi-national investigation of how expected changes in climate and land cover will affect the quality of freshwater resources in Europe. Two are the main research parts of the project: the development of an appropriate model framework and the application of the framework for the impact assessment of environmental changes.
  • An instream water quality model describing plysical, chemical and ciological processes has been developed and has been validated in the Pinios river, the Greek case study
  • A monthly water balance model (WBUDG) has been calibrated and several runs simulated the water balance of the catchment under changed climatic conditions. Scenarios representing future conditions are the UKHI and HadCM2
  • A catchment model of vegetation and soil processes named SWAT, has been calibrated for the Greek catchment
Future work includes the investigation of techniques for linking the models to give a complete catchment system representation.


Partners
Coordinator Institute of Hydrology UK
Partners Laboratory of Hydrology, University of Brussels Belgium
Institute of Ricerca Italy
Finnish Environment Institute FEI Finland
Joint Research Centre, Environment Institute Italy
National Technical University of Athens Greece


Images
The Pinios River and its tributaries in the Thessaly plain
Simulation results of hydrological indicators for two climate change scenarios (UKHI, HadCM2)
% change of BOD concentration for two climate change scenarios (UKHI, HadCM2)
% change of DO concentration for two climate change scenarios (UKHI, HadCM2)