НАУКА

Description

The world today faces enormous challenges, rebuilding water systems, wastewater plants, and infrastructure in general. Major investment is required to renew and upgrade these aging systems for burgeoning population whose future is profoundly affected by an uncertain and changing climate. Over the last few decades we have been witnessing many catastrophic disasters (e.g. floods, draughts, earthquake) that have considerably exceeded the largest recorded events and caused billions in damage. For example, floods in Europe have affected more than 1 100 fatalities and 3 million people in the period 1998-2009, with direct lost estimated as EUR 60 billion (EEA a, 2019). The European Commission has estimated that at least 17 % of its territory have been affected by water scarcity to date and put the cost of droughts in Europe over the past thirty years at EUR 100 billion (EEA b, 2019). In addition, it has been estimated that earthquakes are responsible for about 35% of the economic losses generated by natural disasters (ECSKS, 2019). To manage impacts of natural disasters we need a system modelling approach with the greatest predictive power to assess the risk of water systems, environment, and infrastructure beyond the largest recorded events (Simonovic 2015). This research aims to propose a modelling framework for dynamic resilience assessment to underpin investment decisions within the different sectors for adaptation schemes under the variable climate. The project selected the case study in the upper basin of the Nišava river, a flood-prone area in southeast Serbia. The snow-related processes have an impact on the hydrological regime for regions with higher altitudes within the Nišava river basin. In this region, the Pirot water system is located, having catchment an area of around 571 km2. It represents a multipurpose complex system including the Zavoj reservoir at the Visočica river, hydraulically connected by a pressure tunnel equipped with hydropower plant (HPP) Pirot with the Nišava river.