HYACINTS will develop new methodologies and tools to enable easier and more accurate use of regional scale climate and hydrological models to address local scale water resources problems. A new fully dynamic coupling exploiting OpenMI technology will be established between the climate model code HIRHAM and the distributed physically based hydrological model code MIKE SHE. Based on the coupled model system, an integrated climate-hydrological model for the entire Denmark will be established by combining the regional climate model HIRHAM and the national hydrological model (DK model). As part of the coupling a statistical downscaling and bias correction method will be developed for conversion of data from large (25 km) climate grids to small (e.g. 1 km) hydrological grids. Remote sensing data and techniques will be utilised and further developed with respect to assessing and downscaling of global precipitation datasets in mountainous areas where precipitation is controlled by orographic effects. In order to facilitate downscaling of hydrological models from regional models (e.g. the existing DK model) to local scale models with more detailed geological and topographical resolution, improved grid refinement methods will be developed. Furthermore, improved methods will be developed for handling complex geological environments when changing model scale. The total uncertainty in hydrological change predictions taking all sources of uncertainty into account will be assessed and an improved methodology for assessing the effects of geological uncertainty will be developed.

HYACINTS has 12 partners: two universities, two research institutes, one GTS institute, one SME research and consulting company, one large consulting company, three water companies from the largest cities in Denmark and two Environment Centres.

The overall objectives are to establish improved tools and methodologies for assessing effects of climate change on water resources at both regional and local scales and to test these on cases relevant for the water supply sector in Denmark and for an international case relevant for export of Danish water resources management expertise. The specific scientific objectives are:

To make a full dynamic coupling of a climate model code (HIRHAM) and a distributed
physically based hydrological model code (MIKE SHE).
To further develop precipitation downscaling and bias correction methods when converting
climate model results to hydrological model inputs.
To develop grid refinement methods for hydrological models and methodologies for optimal conceptualisation, simulation and downscaling of complex geological environments.
To develop new methods for estimation of precipitation from remote sensing data, particularly aimed at mountainous regions with poor data coverage.
To establish a coupled climate-hydrological model for the entire Denmark based on the regional climate model HIRHAM and the MIKE SHE based national hydrological model (DK-model) and to assess the hydrological change at local scale at selected cases.
To assess the uncertainties related to prediction of climate change effects on water resources at local scale, including all sources of uncertainty (climate scenarios, model structure, geological interpretations, model parameters and adaptation strategies).

More information on the HYACINTS web site:
http://hyacints.dk/main_uk/main.html

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Last update of this page: 15 April 2008