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Changing Water Cycle
Aims and objectives
The programme will foster interdisciplinary research that links applied water resources issues seamlessly to fundamental climate system science. The high level science goals are:
- To develop an integrated, quantitative understanding of the changes taking place in the global water cycle, involving all components of the earth system - the atmosphere, ocean, land surface and geosphere, cryosphere and biosphere.
- To improve predictions for the next few decades of regional precipitation, evapotranspiration, soil moisture, hydrological storage and fluxes, focusing on the requirement to quantify and narrow the uncertainty in predictions.
- To understand how local to regional scale hydrological and biogeochemical processes are responding and will respond to changing climate and land use, together with their consequent impacts on the sustainable use of soil and water.
- To understand the consequences of the changing water cycle for water-related natural hazards, including floods and droughts, and to improve prediction and mitigation of these hazards.
The Changing Water Cycle programme directly relates to delivery of the NERC Strategy (in particular Climate System, Sustainable Use of Natural Resources and Natural Hazards science themes) and the UK Government's strategic goals with respect to the adaptation to, and mitigation of, climate change.
Further information on this programme can be found in the below specification document.