As the awareness of the changeability of climate and society grows and as we approach or in some cases exceed the limits on sustainable resource use, there is an urgent need for ways to manage environmental systems that can accommodate these new boundary conditions.

One example of a case where all these concerns intersect is the management of hydropower as an aid to the integration of intermittent renewable energy sources such as wind, tidal and solar energy into the regular energy network.

The extent of the changes in management practice will depend first, on the relative capacities of the intermittent renewables and the hydropower facilities in question and second, on the resources and demand evolution due to climatic and societal changes. In this context, energy production needs to include short and long term predictions of the energy demand and of the temporal availability and the quality of natural resources (water, wind power, tidal power, solar power) while being able to accommodate unexpected changes due to variable and intermittent features of renewable energy sources.

This session aims to bring together scientists to discuss existing and emerging modelling, control and optimization methods for managing environmental systems, in particular renewable energy resources, to demonstrate their application in real-world applications and their performance for present and/or future contexts.

Special attention will be given to:
• inclusion of forecasts and uncertainty estimates in models, optimization and control;
• quantification of space-time dependences between wind/solar/tidal energies, water cycle, hydropower and energy demand;
• optimisation of resource use in environmental systems;
• societal and economic aspects related with renewable energy use and development for a sustainable future.

Our solicited speaker, Demetris Koutsoyiannis (Henry Darcy Medal 2009, Dooge Medal 2014, Lorenz Lecture 2014), will talk on the unavoidable uncertainty of renewable energy and its management.

The session is associated with Panta Rhei working group "Natural and man-made control systems in water resources" and welcomes papers addressing the above mentioned points, especially in the context of hybrid power systems and water resource systems used for irrigation, drainage, water supply (potable water, industrial water, cooling water) and transport of goods.