Forecasting the Future of Water

From growing crops to generating energy to supporting ecosystems, water is critical to sustaining life on earth. But human impacts on the planet – pollution, climate change, and agriculture to name a few – threaten the water that our survival depends on. To prepare for potentially drastic changes in the world’s water supply, we first need to understand how these systems are changing. This mission underlies the research of Bjørn Kløve, Head of Water Resources Engineering at the University of Oulu in Finland.

Because water is essential for everything on earth, Bjørn’s team often harnesses a concept called nexus, meaning connections. More specifically, what’s known as the water, energy and food nexus, which highlights how challenges across these fields are interlinked. “Trying to understand these couplings has been a key challenge in our research because typically, any of these fields are approached from very different angles, with very different models, systems, and communities. But by integrating them, we can obtain the information we need to make good decisions around sustainable management.” Energy and water, for instance, are inextricably linked, for one because “hydropower is essential for the future, since it can be used to balance out the supply of renewable energy.”

Another example of this nexus in action is the impact of climate change on water in Finland, where one third of the country is above the arctic circle, as snowfall is projected to reduce in the coming years. “The way of living is pretty much dependent on snow in high latitudes and high altitudes,” says Bjørn. “Skiing is important in the north, and the ecosystems rely on certain snow conditions.” And around the world, 60% of freshwater is made up of snow and ice. “It provides a lot of water for populated areas of Asia and some parts of the US. And of course the Alps are the water towers of Europe.” Monitoring snow coverage is therefore essential for ensuring combating shortfalls in water availability. 

Forecasting the future of water can involve the use of what’s known as a digital twins. “Here, we’re trying to create a representation of reality. We observe the systems and model them in near real-time, and we have ways to visualise what’s happening. These digital twins have different maturity levels – we actually aim to interact with the most advanced systems and run scenarios, like impacts of runoff and pollutants in rivers. The digital twin will perform this action and we’ll see the result.” 

Propelling this research is the Digital Waters Flagship, made up of six research universities and institutes including the University of Oulu, where Bjørn is the leader of the Flagship. “We basically have all the key players in water in Finland, and cover everything from climate, to land surface water monitoring systems, to groundwater, rivers, lakes, and snow. This is an eight-year research project, because it takes time to expand and find out something radically new with high impact. We have an infrastructure that develops with external funding, providing excellence in research and impact to private and public sectors. There will be a snowball effect, allowing us to attract new funding, infrastructures and talents to continue to grow.” 

The university’s involvement in this kind of cutting-edge research is just one of its standout qualities when it comes to water studies. “We have two very important, globally unique pilot sites in northern Finland, one in the boreal zone at Oulanka research station and one in the subarctic zone at Pallas, where we look at how the hydrological systems works. We also have excellent infrastructure, which we are developing continuously, with unique long-term data on hydrology, water quality and ecology.”

“At University of Oulu, we collaborate across scientific boundaries, which is essential in research. We cover water from the broadest possible sense, including hydrology, ecology, engineering and social sciences. There are very few units in Europe with this many researchers in water resources. We are at the peak.”