Global Changes: Characterization, Impacts, and Adaptations

Climate Change, Global Changes, Future Projections, Adaptation, Resilience, Hydrological Modeling, Future Climate Simulation, Water Availability, Extreme Events, Impacts on Ecosystems, Ecological Issues

This course introduces students to the climate, environmental, and anthropogenic changes that are affecting—and will continue to affect—our hydro-eco-socio-systems today and in the future.

The activities focus on certain—though not exhaustive—aspects of this vast field, in which knowledge is constantly evolving.

Beyond simply presenting the issues, figures, and concepts, students learn to use hydrological modeling tools to develop future scenarios for resource trends. They analyze a specific topic by integrating various disciplines and approaches. They discuss possible adaptations to address the impacts of change.

The activities consist of three parts: coursework, modeling, and bibliography.

- The course covers the principles of climate modeling, the development of climate change scenarios, and their limitations. The orders of magnitude of the major changes are outlined, along with the key challenges of sustainable development, climate change, and global changes. Special attention is given to France’s Mediterranean watersheds (a climate change hotspot, declining water availability, agricultural practices and adaptations, irrigation, tourism, etc.).

- The course covers the concepts of hydrological modeling and calibration in non-stationary or sparsely gauged contexts and provides an introduction to hydrological modeling through a practical application. Students work with general hydrological models (such as GR, HEC-HMS, or WEAP) to estimate flows and water balances, input data from climate models, generate future flow and water balance scenarios, and critically evaluate the resulting scenarios. The modeling work, conducted in small groups, is presented orally.

- Finally, the bibliography compiled in class and supplemented independently should enable students to specialize in a specific case study of a change occurring in a compartment of a natural or urbanized hydro-ecosystem (of the students’ choosing). They conduct a literature review to identify the societal or environmental issues arising from these changes, as well as the scientific questions inherent in implementing measures to reduce their impacts or to adapt to them. They must identify how their case study is similar to other cases, but also how it differs from them. Finally, they extend their analysis to a more general methodology that can be applied to other case studies characterizing these changes, their impacts, and adaptation measures. The students write

a concise, practical summary (bibliography, similar case studies, controversies, practical tools, protocols, orders of magnitude). They then present their findings to the class.

- Understand the mechanisms of global change (processes, interactions, combined effects, hydrological impacts) and the limitations of characterizing them (uncertainties, available modeling tools)

- Apply a scientific approach to solve a specific problem

- Write an operational briefing note

- Communicate in a compelling format (such as a pitch)

M1 S1 course “Aquatic and Terrestrial Ecosystems” (or equivalent), reading of a general textbook on hydrology, IPCC summaries

Ongoing assessment of the final presentation of the completed project (and interim reports)