How GoNEXUS modelling can help understand climate change effects in the long-term

In the coming 4 years, GoNEXUS will use models and data to create a series of future projections to identify potential solutions to mitigate and adapt to negative climate change effects. Our project coordinator Manuel Pulido-Velazquez explains why continuing research on global changes is crucial to better tackle future challenges.

GoNEXUS will assess the interlinkages between water, energy, food, and ecosystems (WEFE) elements at different scales, and how changes at one scale affect the others. For example, what changes in food (water consumption in agriculture) and energy (production or demand) may increase the good status standards of the Water Framework Directive? Will it reduce the water available for economic use and cause a rise in crop prices?

GoNEXUS wants to explore these WEFE issues at different scales, to find out how they could evolve in the future. Most importantly, it will examine how policymakers should act to improve the management of the WEFE nexus for both current and future situations.

“If we can better foresee the impacts of a change in policy on the WEFE sectors, we will be better prepared for the future.”

GoNEXUS has been designed to facilitate continued research and leave a legacy to be built upon. The WEFE models we are creating throughout the project, the contacts and achievements of the Nexus Dialogues, the training materials we will develop, etc. are all designed to have concrete applications after the funding period for this project.  

In the long-term, a goal of the project would be for institutions to start to acknowledge the WEFE interlinkages and impacts and for them to adopt better decisions in the face of potential future challenges. One of the main objectives of GoNEXUS is, therefore, to propose updates on the EU policies related to water, agriculture, and energy. It would be interesting to see how these policies evolve and are updated to account for the WEFE nexus interlinkages – especially since achieving this objective will be in itself very relevant.

About the author:

Manuel Pulido-Velazquez is the coordinator for the GoNEXUS project as well as a full professor at the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) in Spain and the director of the Climate Change Chair at UPV. He is also the director of the Research Institute of Water and Environmental Engineering (IIAMA), which is Spain’s leading academic research centre for the interdisciplinary study of water resource management challenges. Before GoNEXUS, Manuel participated in many EU-funded projects (FP7 GENESIS: Groundwater and dependent Ecosystems: new Scientific basis on climate change and land-use impacts for the update of the EU Groundwater Directive, H2020 IMPREX: Improving predictions and management of hydrological extremes, ERA4CS INNOVA: Innovation in Climate Services Provisions well as projects funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation.

Apart from coordinating the project, UPV will lead the activities for two of the case studies: the Jucar (Spain) and the Tagus-Segura (Spain and Portugal). In these river basins, they will develop a set of modelling tools and Nexus Dialogues to achieve the objectives of GoNEXUS.