Imperial College London

ProfessorWouterBuytaert

Faculty of EngineeringDepartment of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Professor in Hydrology and Water Resources
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 1329w.buytaert Website

 
 
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Assistant

 

Miss Judith Barritt +44 (0)20 7594 5967

 
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Location

 

403ASkempton BuildingSouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Publication Type
Year
to

196 results found

Howard B, Awuni C, Berkhout F, Agyei-Mensah S, Buytaert Wet al., 2024, Co-production could improve the science-policy-practice nexus in hydrology: lessons from co-producing knowledge on flood risk in Tamale, Ghana

<jats:p>Understanding of hydrological risk is increasing but much of it remains non-actionable. Consequently, interventions are seldom informed by the latest insights, limiting their effectiveness and resilience, especially in a non-stationary world. The co-production of knowledge in hydrology can result in more salient, useful, and usable outcomes that are used to directly inform decisions. Co-production is an interactive and complex process founded on relationships between science, society, practice, and policy. We are applying this approach to generate locally relevant understanding, evidence, and action on flood risk in Tamale, a city of ~500,000 people in northern Ghana. A team of citizens, practitioners, policy makers, and researchers from a range of disciplines are working together to understand the drivers and distribution of flood risk, as well as the effects of top-down and citizen-led adaptation. Knowledge is generated and validated in a series of stages and cycles and operationalized in different modes for different users. Whilst this is an ongoing process which continues to evolve, in this talk I will share lessons and experiences from the co-production approach in Tamale that may be translatable to other contexts. Co-production approaches represent tangible frameworks to improve the science-policy-practice nexus in hydrology and water resources management, and sharing good examples can expedite adoption.</jats:p>

Other

Buytaert W, 2024, Building a community of practice to produce hydrological evidence: the iMHEA example

<jats:p>The IAHS HELPING decade aims to foster a stronger connection and interaction between scientists, practitioners, policy makers, and end-users towards the goal of global water security. This is a formidable challenge. Despite increasing and highly valuable efforts of scientists to reach out beyond their own discipline and working environment, the ultimate goal of co-creating actionable knowledge is still a long way off in most contexts. Establishing communities of practice has been posited as an approach to creating inter- and transdisciplinary environments that enable cross-learning, pooling of expertise, and collaborative working towards a common goal. However, establishing such communities of practice is very hard, and the conditions and driving factors that allow them to emerge and be productive are poorly understood. It is therefore informative to analyse existing case studies to gain a better understanding of how they can be created and made sustainable. Here I analyse the case of the Initiative for the Hydrological Monitoring of Andean Ecosystems (iMHEA), which is a grassroots initiative that emerged 15 years ago as a collaborative attempt to generate a solid scientific evidence base to support water management in the upper Andes.It started as a small network of 4 partners operating 6 catchments in Ecuador and Peru, using a common monitoring protocol. Since then, it has grown into a network of 22 partners, monitoring 51 catchments at 24 sites along the Andes. Partners represent academia, civil society, and local, regional, and national governments. Originally focused on sharing technical expertise, iMHEA has evolved into a more holistic knowledge co-creation community with a strong focus on community involvement, knowledge exchange, and supporting decision making at various levels.We attribute the success of iMHEA to several factors, of which we believe the following are key. The members&amp;#8217; ability to raise funding, both at the start a

Other

King O, Matthews T, Andrade M, Garcia J-L, Bravo C, Buytaert W, Calle JM, Dussaillant A, Edwards T, Irarrazaval I, Perry B, Potter E, Ticona L, Davies B, Ely Jet al., 2024, Establishing glacier proximal meteorological and glacier ablation stations in different climatic zones along the South American Andes.

<jats:p>Climate change has had a significant impact on the behaviour of the high mountain cryosphere, with widespread glacier retreat and mass loss now occurring in most of the planet&amp;#8217;s glacierised mountain ranges over multi-decadal timescales. If we are to accurately understand the impacts of deglaciation on freshwater availability to communities downstream, robust modelling of future glacier meltwater yield is paramount. Meteorological observations at glacierised elevations are essential to drive simulations of the energy balance at glacier surfaces, and therefore glacier melt, although such records are sparse in most high mountain regions due to the logistical challenges associated with making even short-term measurements. The scarcity of high-altitude meteorological observations has resulted in only limited understanding of factors such as the spatial and temporal variability of temperature lapse rates, precipitation amounts and phase, and the prevalence of conditions suited to sublimation, all of which have an important influence on glacier mass loss rates at high elevation.Here we summarise the installation of meteorological and glacier ablation stations in different climatic zones of the South American Andes - the Tropical Andes of Peru (Nevado Ausangate basecamp, 4800 m, (13&amp;#176;48'45.96"S, 71&amp;#176;12'53.18"W) and Bolivia (Laguna Glaciar, 5300 m, 15&amp;#176;50'10.59"S, 68&amp;#176;33'11.30"W), the Subtropical Andes (Glaciar Universidad, Chile, 2540 m, 34&amp;#176;43'10.07"S, 70&amp;#176;20'44.98"W) and Patagonian Andes (Lago Tranquillo, Chile, 280 m, 46&amp;#176;35'47.00"S, 72&amp;#176;47'38.91"W) &amp;#8211; as part of the NERC-funded Deplete and Retreat Project. Meteorological station records include time series of air temperature and pressure, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, incoming and outgoing short- and longwave radiation, precipitati

Other

Vanacker V, Molina A, Rosas M, Bonnesoeur V, Román-Dañobeytia F, Ochoa-Tocachi B, Buytaert Wet al., 2024, Nature-based solutions for erosion mitigation : insights from a systematic review for the Andean region

<jats:p>The Andes Mountains stretch over about 8900 km and cross tropical, subtropical, temperate and arid latitudes. More than 85 million people lived in the Andean region by 2020, with the northern Andes being one of the most densely populated mountain regions in the world. The demographic growth and a stagnating agricultural productivity per hectare led to an expansion of the total agricultural land area, either upward to steep hillsides at high elevations covered by native grassland-wetlands ecosystems, or downward to lands east and west of the Andes covered by tropical and subtropical forests. Land use and management have significantly altered the magnitude and frequency of erosion events.&amp;#160;This study systematically reviews the state of evidence on the effectiveness of interventions to mitigate soil erosion by water and is based on Andean case studies published in gray and peer-reviewed literature. After screening 1798 records, 118 empirical studies were eligible and included in the quantitative analysis on soil quality and soil erosion. Six indicators were pertinent to study the effectiveness of natural infrastructure: soil organic carbon and bulk density of the topsoil, soil loss rate and run-off coefficient at the plot scale, and specific sediment yield and catchment-wide run-off coefficient at the catchment scale. The protection and conservation of natural vegetation has the strongest effect on soil quality, with 3.01 &amp;#177; 0.893 times higher soil organic carbon content in the topsoil compared to control sites. Soil quality improvements are significant but lower for forestation and soil and water conserva- tion measures. Soil and water conservation measures reduce soil erosion to 62.1 % &amp;#177; 9.2 %, even though erosion mitigation is highest when natural vegetation is maintained.Further research is needed to evaluate whether the reported effectiveness holds during extreme events related to, for example, El Nin&amp;#771

Other

Wagener T, Coxon G, Bloomfield JP, Buytaert W, Fry M, Hannah DM, Old G, Stein Let al., 2024, The value of hydrologic observatories for large sample hydrology and vice versa

<jats:p>Hydrologic observatories have been a cornerstone of hydrologic science for many decades, advancing hydrologic process understanding with focused field observations and targeted experiments. Observatories present our key opportunity for achieving great depth of hydrologic investigation, most often at the headwater catchment scale. We address two main aspects concerning hydrologic observatories in this contribution: (1) While reviews of individual hydrologic observatories and observatory networks exist, no study has investigated the diversity of observatories to understand whether common aspects increase the likelihood of scientific success. We synthesise information from 80 hydrologic observatories and conduct 25 interviews with observatory leads to fill this gap. We find that scientific outcomes are most enhanced by involving scientific and stakeholder communities throughout observatory inception, design, and operation; by enabling infrastructure to be adjustable to changing ideas and conditions; and by facilitating widespread data use for analysis. (2) While observatories are key for advancing local hypotheses, the transferability of knowledge gained locally to other places or scales has often been difficult or even remained elusive. Headwater catchments in particular show a wide range of process controls often only understood if viewed in a wider regional context of climatic, topographic, or other gradients. We therefore must place observatories into the wider tapestry of hydrologic variability, for example through comparison with large samples of catchments, even though significantly less information is available to characterise these diverse systems. We provide some thoughts on how this connection could be improved through digital infrastructure, mobile observational infrastructure and a renewed focus on gradients and contrasts of controlling processes. We believe that there is a significant opportunity to enhance transferrable knowledge creation i

Other

Keir D, Lieberman BS, Acocella V, Buytaert W, Forman SL, Gregoire M, Kodama KP, Lentz DR, Sanchez-Valle Cet al., 2023, Horizons in Earth science 2022, FRONTIERS IN EARTH SCIENCE, Vol: 11

Journal article

Rahmat F, Zulkafli Z, Ishak AJ, Rahman RZA, De Stercke S, Buytaert W, Tahir W, Ab Rahman J, Ibrahim S, Ismail Met al., 2023, Supervised feature selection using principal component analysis, KNOWLEDGE AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS, ISSN: 0219-1377

Journal article

Ross A, Martinez Mendoza M, Drenkhan F, Montoya N, Jan R B, Jonathan D M, David M H, Buytaert Wet al., 2023, Seasonal water storage and release dynamics of bofedal wetlands in the Central Andes, Hydrological Processes, Vol: 37, Pages: 1-14, ISSN: 0885-6087

Tropical high-Andean wetlands, locally known as ‘bofedales’, are key ecosystems sustaining biodiversity, carbon sequestration, water provision and livestock farming. Bofedales' contribution to dry season baseflows and sustaining water quality is crucial for downstream water security. The sensitivity of bofedales to climatic and anthropogenic disturbances is therefore of growing concern for watershed management. This study aims to understand seasonal water storage and release characteristics of bofedales by combining remote sensing analysis and ground-based monitoring for the wet and dry seasons of late 2019 to early 2021, using the glacierised Vilcanota-Urubamba basin (Southern Peru) as a case study. A network of five ultrasound loggers was installed to obtain discharge and water table data from bofedal sites across two headwater catchments. The seasonal extent of bofedales was mapped by applying a supervised machine learning model using Random Forest on imagery from Sentinel-2 and NASADEM. We identified high seasonal variability in bofedal area with a total of 3.5% and 10.6% of each catchment area, respectively, at the end of the dry season (2020), which increased to 15.1% and 16.9%, respectively, at the end of the following wet season (2021). The hydrological observations and bofedal maps were combined into a hydrological conceptual model to estimate the storage and release characteristics of the bofedales, and their contribution to runoff at the catchment scale. Estimated lag times between 1 and 32 days indicate a prolonged bofedal flow contribution throughout the dry season (about 74% of total flow). Thus, our results suggest that bofedales provide substantial contribution to dry season baseflow, water flow regulation and storage. These findings highlight the importance of including bofedales in local water management strategies and adaptation interventions including nature-based solutions that seek to support long-term water security in seaso

Journal article

Kreibich H, Schroeter K, Di Baldassarre G, Van Loon AF, Mazzoleni M, Abeshu GW, Agafonova S, AghaKouchak A, Aksoy H, Alvarez-Garreton C, Aznar B, Balkhi L, Barendrecht MH, Biancamaria S, Bos-Burgering L, Bradley C, Budiyono Y, Buytaert W, Capewell L, Carlson H, Cavus Y, Couasnon A, Coxon G, Daliakopoulos I, de Ruiter MC, Delus C, Erfurt M, Esposito G, Francois D, Frappart F, Freer J, Frolova N, Gain AK, Grillakis M, Grima JO, Guzman DA, Huning LS, Ionita M, Kharlamov M, Khoi DN, Kieboom N, Kireeva M, Koutroulis A, Lavado-Casimiro W, Li H-Y, LLasat MC, Macdonald D, Mard J, Mathew-Richards H, McKenzie A, Mejia A, Mendiondo EM, Mens M, Mobini S, Mohor GS, Nagavciuc V, Ngo-Duc T, Nguyen HTT, Nhi PTT, Petrucci O, Quan NH, Quintana-Segui P, Razavi S, Ridolfi E, Riegel J, Sadik MS, Sairam N, Savelli E, Sazonov A, Sharma S, Soerensen J, Souza FAA, Stahl K, Steinhausen M, Stoelzle M, Szalinska W, Tang Q, Tian F, Tokarczyk T, Tovar C, Tran TVT, van Huijgevoort MHJ, van Vliet MTH, Vorogushyn S, Wagener T, Wang Y, Wendt DE, Wickham E, Yang L, Zambrano-Bigiarini M, Ward PJet al., 2023, Panta Rhei benchmark dataset: socio-hydrological data of paired events of floods and droughts, EARTH SYSTEM SCIENCE DATA, Vol: 15, Pages: 2009-2023, ISSN: 1866-3508

Journal article

Coxon G, Bloomfield JP, Buytaert W, Fry M, Old G, Wagener Tet al., 2023, Lessons learned from catchment observatory and network design in the UK, rest of Europe and North-America

<jats:p>Many countries fund catchment observatories and networks to provide observational data, test models and hypotheses, discover new insights, catalyse the development of new technologies and enhance interdisciplinary collaboration. These catchment networks provide a wealth of observational data, yet synthesising information across catchment observatories to produce process-based understanding is challenging. To generalise findings from place-based studies, we need greater synthesis across catchment networks and thus careful consideration of the design and topology of catchment observatories and monitoring networks.In this paper, we collate information from 80 catchment observatories/networks and conduct 21 questionnaires with project leads with the aim of reviewing the strengths and weaknesses of catchment observatories to provide recommendations that can inform future catchment observatory and network design. The catchment observatories encompass a wide range of flow regimes, science questions and spatial/temporal scales with 25, 33 and 22 observatories from the UK, Europe, and North America respectively. Most catchment observatories in the monitoring catalogue are concentrated in upland catchment systems monitoring flashy flow regimes, with very few focused on lowland systems and no catchment observatories focused on urban catchments. The choice of catchment observatory location was focused upon logistics and catchment characteristics, with logistics and the day-to-day running of the observatory highlighted as the aspect catchment observatory programme managers found most difficult. Many interviewees noted that the design of the observatory was a key phase in planning and an aspect they would have done differently.Finally, we recommend key design guidelines for future catchment observatory and networks. This includes the need for a scoping and planning phase, community co-designed, digital infrastructure that enables FAIR data provision, and flexible an

Other

Drenkhan F, Buytaert W, Mackay JD, Barrand NE, Hannah DM, Huggel Cet al., 2023, Managing complex social-hydrological systems for water security: the case of the mountain cryosphere

<jats:p>In many mountain regions, the cryosphere is a crucial component of water provision to downstream societies, as it contributes to dry-season flows and sustains diverse ecosystems. However, many of the world&amp;#8217;s glacierized watersheds experience far-reaching changes at accelerated pace due to declining glaciers and snowpack, climate change impacts and socioeconomic development in the non-cryospheric parts of the catchment. The implications for downstream water supply are therefore manifold and complex. Coupled effects of reduced and less reliable water availability, changes in water quality, and growing water demand exert increasing pressure on water resources and threaten future water security and management.We argue that the limited understanding of interactions between the cryosphere, glacial and non-glacial water stores, river runoff and people hamper climate change adaptation and long-term water security. Meaningful assessments of mountain water security require therefore a holistic social-ecological perspective that interlinks the wider catchment hydrology considering both, surface and subsurface stores, and people including human water demand with improved data and process understanding. Water security assessments can then be guided by a fully coupled hydrological risk framework. This approach needs to integrate multiple social-ecological vulnerabilities as well as the degree of exposure to water shortage under a variety of possible future scenarios of glacier shrinkage, catchment alteration and socioeconomic development. Essentially, this requires a thorough understanding of interrelated upstream-downstream systems and the spatiotemporal propagation of meltwater through the terrestrial water cycle.Improved data and more diverse knowledge collection that point to the missing links in the terrestrial water cycle are a priority. Multiple sources of knowledge should be co-produced and integrated into a collaborative science-policy-communi

Other

Buytaert W, 2023, Towards a robust, open-source logging platform for environmental monitoring in challenging environments: the Riverlabs toolbox

<jats:p>Hydrology is still one of the most data scarce natural sciences. The large number of variables to measure, their extreme spatiotemporal gradients, and the often harsh and hostile environmental conditions all contribute to this issue. This challenge is even more pronounced in remote and extreme environments such as the tropics, and mountain regions, where the need for robust data is most acute.Many new and emergent technologies can help with building more cost-effective, robust, and versatile hydrological monitoring systems. However, the speed at which these new technologies are being incorporated in commercially available systems is slow and dictated by commercial interests and bottlenecks.An alternative solution is for scientists to build their own systems using off the shelf components. Open-source hardware and software, such as the Arduino and Raspberry Pi ecosystems, make this increasingly feasible. As a result, a plethora of global initiatives for open-source sensing and logging solutions have emerged.But despite these new technologies, it remains a major challenge to build open-source solutions that equal the reliability and robustness of the high-end commercial systems that are available on the market. Sharing experiences, best practices, and evidence on the real-world performance of different designs may help with overcoming this bottleneck.In this contribution, I summarize the experience gained from developing and operating over 300 open-source data loggers, built around the Riverlabs platform. This platform is mostly a compilation of existing open-source hardware and software components and solutions, which were refined further and tweaked for robustness and reliability in extreme environments. Our loggers have been installed in locations as diverse as Arctic Norway, the high Andes of Peru and Chile, the Nepalese and Indian Himalayas, the Somali desert, and the Malaysian rainforest, providing a wide range of real-world test-cases and performa

Other

Dixit S, Yasmin T, Khamis K, Ross A, Sen S, Sen D, Buytaert W, Hannah DM, Sen Set al., 2023, Developing a SMART flood early warning system for a mountain watershed: experiences from the Lesser Himalayas

<jats:p>In the current context of climate change, urban areas in the Himalayas frequently experience flash floods. During high-intensity rainfall events in the catchments, due to hilly terrain and steep slopes, headwater streams cause flash floods and destroy life and property downstream. Increased encroachment along riverbanks and unplanned urban settlements expose financially distressed communities to the elevated risk of floods. This requires developing a reliable warning/alert system to ensure better preparedness for flood hazards and improve disaster resilience. Adequate hydrometeorological monitoring is a key element of such a system to generate knowledge on catchment/watershed characteristics as part of a broader disaster mitigation framework to reduce flood risk.&amp;#160;The Bindal river in Dehradun (the capital city of Uttarakhand state in India) lies in the Doon valley on the foothills of the Himalayas, having a significant elevation difference of 450m with an area of 44.4 km2. The downstream settlements of the Bindal river experience flash floods during the monsoon season. Utilizing a SMART approach (developing shared understanding, monitoring, and awareness of the associated risks for preplanning response actions on time), this study aims to leverage and test a low-cost sensor network to provide information of hydrological variability and runoff response in the Bindal catchment. The SMART sensor network consists of 3 LiDAR river water level sensors and 4 tipping-bucket rain gauges at 15-minute intervals. The observed data showcases a substantial variability at both spatial and temporal scales within the small catchment of the Bindal river. The correlation coefficient (p value&lt;0.05) between the rainfall observations at different stations varied from 0.82 to 0.20, with distance between their locations varying from 2.74 to 8.24km. The difference in total monthly rainfall recorded in two rain gauges 8.24 km apart in September is 187 mm. Add

Other

Evans J, Bloomfield J, Coxon G, Teagle S, Buytaert W, Fry M, Ball L, Rudd A, Sorensen J, Chappell N, Wagener T, Old Get al., 2023, A Vision for Transformative Hydrological Monitoring &amp;#8211; Planning for the UK Floods and Droughts Research Infrastructure (FDRI)

<jats:p>&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Here we present the UK vision for new world-leading hydrological observation networks and sensor innovation test beds that will provide the long-term datasets needed to enable the mitigation of the impacts of hydrological extremes. Plans are underway for a Floods and Droughts Research Infrastructure (FDRI). This represents a major capital investment expected to be funded by the UK Research and Innovation Infrastructure Fund and delivered through the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) at an estimated cost of &amp;amp;#163;38m. FDRI is urgently needed to make the UK more adaptable and resilient to floods and droughts. It will include major new hydrological catchment instrumentation, with innovative technology to provide observations of key components of the terrestrial water cycle, and in-field facilities for trialling and developing new sensing technologies. Extensive community consultation and reviews have identified key science questions that are being used to inform infrastructure design. Successful impact will be enabled through strong investment in digital infrastructure to achieve a hydrological data commons. Integrated near real-time datasets will be publicly accessible, consolidated and inter-operable, ready for application specific analysis and modelling. As FDRI planning develops, there are opportunities to design-in the latest thinking on catchment monitoring strategies with innovative sensing, and to ensure that long-term hydrological datasets will be able to answer a wide variety of future research questions.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;</jats:p>

Other

Goyburo A, Rau P, Lavado-Casimiro W, Buytaert W, Cuadros-Adriazola J, Horna Det al., 2023, Assessment of present and future water security under anthropogenic and climate changes using WEAP model in the Vilcanota-Urubamba catchment, Cusco, Perú, Water, Vol: 15, Pages: 1-20, ISSN: 2073-4441

Water is an essential resource for social and economic development. The availability of this resource is constantly threatened by the rapid increase in its demand. This research assesses current (2010–2016), short- (2017–2040), middle- (2041–2070), and long-term (2071–2099) levels of water security considering socio-economic and climate change scenarios using the Water Evaluation and Planning System (WEAP) in Vilcanota-Urubamba (VUB) catchment. The streamflow data of the Pisac hydrometric station were used to calibrate (1987–2006) and validate (2007–2016) the WEAP Model applied to the VUB region. The Nash Sutcliffe efficiency values were 0.60 and 0.84 for calibration and validation, respectively. Different scenarios were generated for socio-economic factors (population growth and increased irrigation efficiency) and the impact of climate change to evaluate their effect on the current water supply system. The results reveal that water availability is much higher than the current demand in the VUB for the period (2010–2016). For short-, middle- and long term, two scenarios were considered, “Scenario 1” (RCP 4.5) and “Scenario 2” (RCP 8.5). Climate change scenarios show that water availability will increase. However, this increase will not cover the future demands in all the sub-basins because water availability is not evenly distributed in all of the VUB. In both scenarios, an unmet demand was detected from 2050. For the period 2071–2099, an unmet demand of 477 hm3/year for “Scenario 1” and 446 hm3/year for “Scenario 2” were estimated. Because population and agricultural demands are the highest, the effects of reducing the growth rate and improving the irrigation structure were simulated. Therefore, two more scenarios were generated “Scenario 3” (RCP 4.5 with management) and “Scenario 4” (RCP 8.5 with management). This socio-economic management prove

Journal article

Jayaramu V, Zulkafli Z, De Stercke S, Buytaert W, Rahmat F, Rahman RZA, Ishak AJ, Tahir W, Ab Rahman J, Fuzi NMHMet al., 2023, Leptospirosis modelling using hydrometeorological indices and random forest machine learning, International Journal of Biometeorology: the description, causes, and implications of climatic change, Vol: 67, Pages: 423-437, ISSN: 0020-7128

Leptospirosis is a zoonosis that has been linked to hydrometeorological variability. Hydrometeorological averages and extremes have been used before as drivers in the statistical prediction of disease. However, their importance and predictive capacity are still little known. In this study, the use of a random forest classifier was explored to analyze the relative importance of hydrometeorological indices in developing the leptospirosis model and to evaluate the performance of models based on the type of indices used, using case data from three districts in Kelantan, Malaysia, that experience annual monsoonal rainfall and flooding. First, hydrometeorological data including rainfall, streamflow, water level, relative humidity, and temperature were transformed into 164 weekly average and extreme indices in accordance with the Expert Team on Climate Change Detection and Indices (ETCCDI). Then, weekly case occurrences were classified into binary classes “high” and “low” based on an average threshold. Seventeen models based on “average,” “extreme,” and “mixed” indices were trained by optimizing the feature subsets based on the model computed mean decrease Gini (MDG) scores. The variable importance was assessed through cross-correlation analysis and the MDG score. The average and extreme models showed similar prediction accuracy ranges (61.5–76.1% and 72.3–77.0%) while the mixed models showed an improvement (71.7–82.6% prediction accuracy). An extreme model was the most sensitive while an average model was the most specific. The time lag associated with the driving indices agreed with the seasonality of the monsoon. The rainfall variable (extreme) was the most important in classifying the leptospirosis occurrence while streamflow was the least important despite showing higher correlations with leptospirosis.

Journal article

Yasmin T, Khamis K, Ross A, Sen S, Sharma A, Sen D, Sen S, Buytaert W, Hannah DMet al., 2023, Brief communication: Inclusiveness in designing an early warning system for flood resilience, NATURAL HAZARDS AND EARTH SYSTEM SCIENCES, Vol: 23, Pages: 667-674, ISSN: 1561-8633

Journal article

Nardi F, Cudennec C, Abrate T, Allouch C, Annis A, Assumpcao T, Aubert AH, Berod D, Braccini AM, Buytaert W, Dasgupta A, Hannah DM, Mazzoleni M, Polo MJ, Saebo O, Seibert J, Tauro F, Teichert F, Teutonico R, Uhlenbrook S, Vargas CW, Grimaldi Set al., 2022, Citizens AND HYdrology (CANDHY): conceptualizing a transdisciplinary framework for citizen science addressing hydrological challenges, HYDROLOGICAL SCIENCES JOURNAL, Vol: 67, Pages: 2534-2551, ISSN: 0262-6667

Journal article

Molina A, Vanacker V, Rosas MA, Ochoa-Tocachi B, Bonnesoeur V, Román-Dañobeytia F, Buytaert Wet al., 2022, Natural infrastructure interventions and their effect on soil erosion mitigation in the Andes

<jats:p>&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;The Andes region is prone to soil erosion because of its steep topographic relief, high spatio-temporal variability in precipitation and heterogeneity in lithological strength. Soil erosion by water is affecting natural and anthropogenic environments through its impacts on water quality and availability, loss of soil nutrients, flood risk, sedimentation in rivers and streams, and damage to civil infrastructure. Sustainable land and water management, referred here as natural infrastructure interventions, aims to avoid, reduce and reverse soil erosion and can provide multiple benefits for the environment, population and livelihoods. In this study, we present a systematic review of peer-reviewed and grey literature involving more than 120 local case-studies from the Andes. Three major categories of natural infrastructure interventions were considered: protective vegetation, soil and water conservation measures, and adaptation measures that regulate the flow and transport of water. The analysis was designed to answer the following research questions: (1) Which soil erosion indicators allow us to assess the effectiveness of natural infrastructure interventions across the Andean range? (2) What is the overall impact of implementing natural infrastructure interventions for on-site and off-site erosion mitigation?&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;The systematic review shows that the effectiveness of protective vegetation on soil erosion mitigation is the most commonly studied characteristic, accounting for more than half of the empirical studies. From the suite of physical, chemical and biological indicators that were commonly used in soil erosion research, our review identified two indicators to be particularly suitable for the analyses of the effectiveness of natural infrastructure interventions: soil organic carbon (SOC) of the topsoil, and soil loss rates at plot scale. The implementation of soil and water conserva

Journal article

Vanacker V, Molina A, Rosas MA, Bonnesoeur V, Román-Dañobeytia F, Ochoa-Tocachi BF, Buytaert Wet al., 2022, The effect of natural infrastructure on water erosion mitigation in the Andes

<jats:p>&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;The Andes Mountains stretch over about 8900 km and cross tropical, subtropical, temperate and arid latitudes. Very few, if any, of the diverse physiographic, climatic and biogeographic regions in the Andes have been preserved from human impact. Land use and management have significantly altered the magnitude and frequency of erosion events: deforestation and agricultural practices (such as soil tillage and cattle grazing) have modified erosion rates, river sediment loads and landslide occurrences.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;There is an urgent need to identify which soil conservation and management practices are most effective to combat soil erosion and to mitigate the on-site and off-site effects in the Andean region. Three large groups of water-related interventions can be identified: interventions based on land use and protective land cover including (1) restoration and protection of native ecosystems, such as montane forests or grasslands and (2) forestation with native or exotic species and (3) soil and water conservation measures including crop management, conservation tillage and slow-forming terraces and the implementation of linear elements such as vegetation strips and check dams. To expand the knowledge base on natural infrastructure for erosion mitigation in the Andes, it is necessary to move beyond case-by-case empirical studies to comprehensive assessments.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;This study reviews the state of evidence on the effectiveness of interventions to mitigate soil erosion by water and is based on Andean case studies. Based on a systematic review of peer-reviewed and grey literature involving more than 120 local case-studies from the Andes, this study addressed the following research questions: (1) Which erosion indicators allow us to assess the effectiveness of natural infrastructure? (2) What is the overall impact of working with natural infrastructure on

Journal article

Drenkhan F, Buytaert W, Mackay JD, Barrand NE, Hannah DM, Huggel Cet al., 2022, Looking beyond glaciers to understand mountain water security, Nature Sustainability, Vol: 6, Pages: 130-138, ISSN: 2398-9629

Changes in the mountain cryosphere impact the water security of downstream societies and the resilience of water-dependent ecosystems and their services. However, assessing mountain water security requires better understanding of the complex interaction between glacial meltwater and coupled human–natural systems. In this context, we call for a refocusing from glacio-hydrological monitoring and modelling to a more integrated social-ecological perspective of the wider catchment hydrology. This shift requires locally relevant knowledge-production strategies and the integration of such knowledge into a collaborative science–policy–community framework. This approach, combined with hydrological risk assessment, can support the development of robust, locally tailored and transformational adaptation strategies.

Journal article

Alemie TC, Buytaert W, Clark J, Tilahun SA, Steenhuis TSet al., 2022, Barriers to implementing poverty alleviation through livelihood strategies: A participatory analysis of farming communities in Ethiopia?s upper Blue Nile basin, Environmental Science and Policy, Vol: 136, Pages: 453-466, ISSN: 1462-9011

Poverty is multi-dimensional global challenge that impedes individual and community capacities to satisfy basic needs. These capacities are shaped by locally configured institutional and biophysical processes that are often hidden from external researchers and practitioners. To explore this worldwide aspect, we adopt participatory rural appraisal (PRA) methods to expose barriers to implementing livelihood strategies to address poverty in Ethiopia’s upper Blue Nile basin, where 85 % of the population are subsistence farmers reliant on local ecosystem services (ES). We identify local barriers to poverty alleviation in three steps. First, we classify major ES-livelihood interrelationships among communities of Debre Mawi catchment in upper Blue Nile. Secondly we assess ongoing struggles in these interrelations using combined biophysical and social assessment criteria to evaluate how poverty relates to current patterns of ES management. The analysis identifies complex interdependencies between livelihoods and regulating (crop pest controls), provisioning (water, land, and feed availability, soil fertility) and cultural (top-down ES management, population growth) ES that create bottlenecks to effectively ‘lock in’ poverty. Thirdly, we identify potential new ES management strategies, focused on dry season water availability. We conduct participatory field experiments on rooftop water harvesting to show this is a promising approach for increasing water availability to enhance agricultural production. Depending on the rooftop area, our modelling suggests that farmers can improve household income by US$136– 14,876 from 5 months beef fattening and US$69–7704 from 4 months sheep fattening. Except these specific livelihood strategies, the findings are replicable to the world’s ES-dependent regions.

Journal article

Nardi F, Cudennec C, Abrate T, Annis A, Assumpção TH, Aubert AH, Berod D, Braccini AM, Buytaert W, Dasgupta A, Hannah DM, Mazzoleni M, Polo MJ, Sæbø Ø, Seibert J, Tauro F, Teutonico R, Uhlenbrook S, Wahrmann Vargas C, Grimaldi Set al., 2022, Citizens AND HYdrology (CANDHY): on the application of a transdisciplinary framework for assessing citizen science projects addressing hydrological challenges

<jats:p>&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Earth and water monitoring and observation systems provide open geo data to scientists and professionals supporting distributed knowledge of major hydromet dynamics and extremes. Mobile technologies, at the same time, are empowering citizens who are nowadays informed and involved in volunteering actions designed and implemented to make our communities more safe and sustainable. Citizen science, as a consequence, is gaining momentum empowering the general public, from the &amp;amp;#8220;pleasure of doing science&amp;amp;#8221; to complementing observations, increasing scientific literacy, and supporting collaborative behaviour to solve specific water-related challenges. This work illustrates a conceptual transdisciplinary assessment model that was designed with the goal of standardizing the use of citizen science for advancing hydrology. This work was promoted by the Citizens AND HYdrology (CANDHY) Working Group established by the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS), and that is composed by a diverse group of hydrological, computer and social science experts. A community paper (Nardi et al., in press) presented the conceptualization of this transdisciplinary framework by identifying the shared constituents, interfaces and interlinkages between hydrological sciences and other academic and non-academic disciplines. Particular emphasis was given to the integration of human sensing and behavioural mechanisms into citizen science programs addressing hydrological problems. The proposed CANDHY transdisciplinary framework is here further tested and applied to assess some selected citizen science programs to understand the knowledge gaps and opportunities arising from ongoing citizen science programs. This comparative assessment shows some interesting preliminary results demonstrating the capacity of the proposed framework in homogenizing and accumulating knowledge from the collaboration of diverse participa

Journal article

Monge-Salazar MJ, Tovar C, Cuadros-Adriazola J, Baiker JR, Montesinos-Tubée DB, Bonnesoeur V, Antiporta J, Román-Dañobeytia F, Fuentealba B, Ochoa-Tocachi BF, Buytaert Wet al., 2022, Ecohydrology and ecosystem services of a natural and an artificial bofedal wetland in the central Andes, Science of the Total Environment, Vol: 838, ISSN: 0048-9697

High-altitude wetlands of the Central Andes, locally known as bofedales, provide important ecosystem services, particularly carbon storage, forage provisioning, and water regulation. Local communities have artificially expanded bofedales by irrigating surrounding grasslands to maximise areas for alpaca grazing. Despite their importance, biophysical processes of both natural and artificial bofedales are still poorly studied, which hinders the development of adequate management and conservation strategies. We analyse and compare the vegetation composition, hydrological variables, groundwater chemistry, and soil characteristics of a natural and an artificial bofedal of at least 10 years old in southern Peru, to understand their interrelations and the consequences for ecosystem service provisioning. We do not find statistically significant differences in the soil, water, and vegetation characteristics. Soil organic carbon (SOC) content, which we use as a proxy for carbon storage, is negatively correlated to dissolved oxygen, pH, and soil water temperature. In addition, Non-Metric Multidimensional Scaling analysis shows a positive relation between plant community composition, SOC content, and water electric conductivity. Our results suggest a three-way interaction between hydrological, soil, and vegetation characteristics in the natural bofedal, which also holds for the artificial bofedal. Vegetation cover of two of the most highly nutritious species for alpaca, Lachemilla diplophylla and Lilaeopsis macloviana with 19-22% of crude protein, are weakly or not correlated to environmental variables, suggesting grazing might be obscuring these potential relationships. Given the high economic importance of alpaca breeding for local communities, expanding bofedales artificially appears an effective strategy to enhance their ecosystem services with minimal impact on the ecohydrological properties of bofedales.

Journal article

Kreibich H, Van Loon AF, Schroeter K, Ward PJ, Mazzoleni M, Sairam N, Abeshu GW, Agafonova S, AghaKouchak A, Aksoy H, Alvarez-Garreton C, Aznar B, Balkhi L, Barendrecht MH, Biancamaria S, Bos-Burgering L, Bradley C, Budiyono Y, Buytaert W, Capewell L, Carlson H, Cavus Y, Couasnon A, Coxon G, Daliakopoulos I, de Ruiter MC, Delus C, Erfurt M, Esposito G, Francois D, Frappart F, Freer J, Frolova N, Gain AK, Grillakis M, Grima JO, Guzman DA, Huning LS, Ionita M, Kharlamov M, Khoi DN, Kieboom N, Kireeva M, Koutroulis A, Lavado-Casimiro W, Li H-Y, LLasat MC, Macdonald D, Mard J, Mathew-Richards H, McKenzie A, Mejia A, Mendiondo EM, Mens M, Mobini S, Mohor GS, Nagavciuc V, Thanh N-D, Thi TNH, Pham TTN, Petrucci O, Hong QN, Quintana-Segui P, Razavi S, Ridolfi E, Riegel J, Sadik MS, Savelli E, Sazonov A, Sharma S, Sorensen J, Souza FAA, Stahl K, Steinhausen M, Stoelzle M, Szalinska W, Tang Q, Tian F, Tokarczyk T, Tovar C, Tran TVT, Van Huijgevoort MHJ, van Vliet MTH, Vorogushyn S, Wagener T, Wang Y, Wendt DE, Wickham E, Yang L, Zambrano-Bigiarini M, Bloschl G, Di Baldassarre Get al., 2022, The challenge of unprecedented floods and droughts in risk management, Nature, Vol: 608, Pages: 80-+, ISSN: 0028-0836

Risk management has reduced vulnerability to floods and droughts globally1,2, yet their impacts are still increasing3. An improved understanding of the causes of changing impacts is therefore needed, but has been hampered by a lack of empirical data4,5. On the basis of a global dataset of 45 pairs of events that occurred within the same area, we show that risk management generally reduces the impacts of floods and droughts but faces difficulties in reducing the impacts of unprecedented events of a magnitude not previously experienced. If the second event was much more hazardous than the first, its impact was almost always higher. This is because management was not designed to deal with such extreme events: for example, they exceeded the design levels of levees and reservoirs. In two success stories, the impact of the second, more hazardous, event was lower, as a result of improved risk management governance and high investment in integrated management. The observed difficulty of managing unprecedented events is alarming, given that more extreme hydrological events are projected owing to climate change3.

Journal article

Veness WA, Butler AP, Ochoa-Tocachi BF, Moulds S, Buytaert Wet al., 2022, Localizing hydrological drought early warning using in situ groundwater sensors, Water Resources Research, Vol: 58, Pages: 1-12, ISSN: 0043-1397

Drought early warning systems (DEWSs) aim to spatially monitor and forecast risk of water shortage to inform early, risk-mitigating interventions. However, due to the scarcity of in situ monitoring in groundwater-dependent arid zones, spatial drought exposure is inferred using maps of satellite-based indicators such as rainfall anomalies, soil moisture, and vegetation indices. On the local scale, these coarse-resolution proxy indicators provide a poor inference of groundwater availability. The improving affordability and technical capability of modern sensors significantly increases the feasibility of taking direct groundwater level measurements in data-scarce, arid regions on a larger scale. Here, we assess the potential of in situ monitoring to provide a localized index of hydrological drought in Somaliland. We find that calibrating a lumped groundwater model with a short time series of groundwater level observations substantially improves the quantification of local water availability when compared to satellite-based indices. By varying the calibration length, we find that a 5-week period capturing both wet and dry season conditions provides most of the calibration capacity. This suggests that short monitoring campaigns are suitable for improving estimations of local water availabilities during drought. Short calibration periods have practical advantages, as the relocation of sensors enables rapid characterization of a large number of wells. These well simulations can supplement continuous in situ monitoring of strategic point sources to setup large-scale monitoring systems with contextualized and localized information on water availability. This information can be used as early warning evidence for the financing and targeting of early actions to mitigate impacts of hydrological drought.

Journal article

Chou H-K, Ochoa-Tocachi BF, Moulds S, Buytaert Wet al., 2022, Parameterizing the JULES land surface model for different land covers in the tropical Andes, HYDROLOGICAL SCIENCES JOURNAL, Vol: 67, Pages: 1516-1526, ISSN: 0262-6667

Journal article

Yasmin T, Khamis K, Ross A, Sen S, Sharma A, Sen D, Sen S, Buytaert W, Hannah DMet al., 2022, Brief Communication: Inclusiveness in designing early warning system for flood resilience

<jats:p>Abstract. Floods remain a wicked-problem and are becoming more destructive with widespread ecological, social and economic impacts. The problem is particularly acute in modified formerly pristine, mountainous river-catchments where plausible assumptions of risk-behaviour relevant to flood exposure and vulnerability are crucial for robust early warning system development. In particular more focused conversation with the community-at-risks is required. In such context, we advocate the use of a SMART-approach to facilitate bottom-up initiatives to facilitate development of inclusive and purposeful early warning systems that benefit the community-at-risk by engaging them every step of the way along with including other stakeholders at multiple-scales of operations. </jats:p>

Journal article

Heal KV, Bartosova A, Hipsey MR, Chen X, Buytaert W, Li H-Y, McGrane SJ, Gupta AB, Cudennec Cet al., 2022, Ensuring consideration of water quality in nexus approaches in the science-practice continuum: reply to discussion of "Water quality: the missing dimension of water in the water-energy-food nexus?", HYDROLOGICAL SCIENCES JOURNAL, Vol: 67, Pages: 1291-1293, ISSN: 0262-6667

Journal article

Twomlow A, Grainger S, Cieslik K, Paul JD, Buytaert Wet al., 2022, A user-centred design framework for disaster risk visualisation, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, Vol: 77, Pages: 103067-103067, ISSN: 2212-4209

Visualisations are powerful communication tools that have the potential to help societies assess and manage natural hazard and disaster risks. However, the diversity of risk management contexts and user characteristics is a challenge to develop understandable and useable visualisations. We conducted a systematic literature review to understand the current state developing disaster risk visualisations following design best practices and accounting for the heterogeneity between end-users and disaster risk contexts. We find that, despite being widely recommended, tailoring visualisations to users through the process of user-centred design remains a relatively unexplored topic within disaster risk. To address this, we present a unifying user-centred design framework for disaster risk visualisation, based on existing visualisation frameworks. The framework contains three phases: the Define phase, which aims to define and characterise the disaster risk management context and end-user group who will benefit from a visualisation; the Design phase, which is highly iterative and presents an opportunity to test how users interpret different design elements; and the Refine phase, which focuses on evaluating how users understand, respond to, and make decisions based on the visualisation. The framework is sufficiently flexible to be applied to any disaster risk management and natural hazard context to identify challenges and design effective disaster risk visualisations that are understandable and useable.

Journal article

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