Droughts and water scarcity are increasingly being observed in many regions of Europe, requiring innovative hydrological monitoring, modeling and forecasting approaches to evaluate the complexity of hydrological impacts on the availability and quality of water resources.

While the term drought describes a natural hazard, the term water scarcity is related to the long-term unsustainable use of water resources. Both phenomena are, however, closely linked to each other and their monitoring, modelling and prediction requires careful attention to the complex interrelationships.

While an increase in the severity and frequency of droughts can lead to water scarcity situations, particularly in regions already water stressed, overexploitation of available water resources can exacerbate the consequences of droughts. In the worst case this can lead to long-term environmental and socio-economic impacts. Particular attention should, therefore, be paid to the feedbacks between these two phenomena.

It is therefore necessary to improve the predictive skills for both droughts and medium to long-term water availability and to develop innovative indicators and methodologies for enhancing the early warning capability of drought monitoring and forecasting systems.

The session will address modeling techniques, both of the data-driven and of the physically-based modelling type, aimed at monitoring and forecasting, over medium to long time horizons, the hydro-meteorological variables that describe and govern a situation of drought and/or water scarcity. In particular, but not exclusively, we refer to precipitation, snow cover, soil moisture, streamflow and groundwater.

The session aims to bring together scientists and practitioners in the fields of hydrology and meteorology as well as stakeholders and practitioners in the field of water resources management, interested in monitoring, modelling and forecasting the interrelationships between drought and water scarcity and their hydrological impacts.

Particularly welcome are applications and real-world case studies in regions subject to significant water stress, where the importance of forecasting long-term water resources availability is likely to become more important in the future.