About – MEWS

The Project Managing Events and Extremes in Water Supplies or MEWS is funded by the European Union Partnership Water4All (https://www.water4all-partnership.eu/). MEWS is one of the projects funded under the Joint Transnational Call / Management of water resources: resilience, adaptation & mitigation to hydroclimatic extreme events & management tools. MEWS has partners in Sweden, Denmark, Germany, France and Canada.

When considering hydroclimatic extreme events MEWS considers the effects of present and future extreme hydrologic inputs on water supply drinking water quality, and also the effects of the transport and processing of the input nutrients and organic carbon as it moves from input to water supply withdrawal.

The Main Goals of MEWS

To develop a freely available comprehensive modelling tool that will allow stakeholders to evaluate the effects of extreme hydro-climatic events on drinking water quality.
To co-develop the modelling system with stakeholders from Three demonstration sites, including scenarios, workflows, documentation and training
To increase our understanding of the complex regulation of the effects of extreme events and antecedent conditions on water quality at the water supply withdrawal under present and future conditions.

Background

All Extreme Events are not Equal

A key premise of MEWS is that when considering the effects of hyro-climatic extreme events on surface water supplies , it is not sufficient to only evaluate the inputs to a water supply that result from extreme precipitation. MEWS emphasizes that it is also the changes in the form, bio-availibillity and quantity of inputs that occur as a consequence of the transport of materials in the water body.

Key Concepts

Drinking water reservoirs are often created in impounded river basins. Major inputs are separated from water supply withdrawal
It is not only event input but the transport and processing of the input that affects water quality at the withdrawal
The effect of an extreme event is not just related to increased precipitation amount, but also antecedent watershed and waterbody conditions:
Soil moisture – Runoff Response
Thermal structure and water level – Reservoir transport and biogeochemistry
Extreme events related to reduced precipitation and reduced water level increase the importance of internal reservoir processes
Antecedent conditions affect not only watershed and water body response but also the coupling between systems.
Antecedent conditions are complexly affected by climate change