Hydroclimate services are more than just providing data

The concept of hydroclimate services is predominantly recognised as web portals dedicated to the dissemination of data to potential users. However, the scope of climate services extends beyond the sole provision of data. This communication presents a comprehensive ecosystem of tools and resources associated with the development of an updated national hydrological projection dataset in France. The ecosystem was brought to life through a close collaboration between scientists and water managers in two joint projects: Explore2 and LIFE Eau&Climat. Tools and resources were thus developped with and for water resource managers, and designed to enhance the comprehension of both the conceptual framework and the data itself, facilitating utilisation in accordance with best practices for climate change adaptation.

The project websites serve as gateways to the ecosystem and the tools: the Explore2 website contains interviews with the scientific contributors, and the LIFE Eau&Climat website is hosted by the national website dedicated to water managers. A summary of the joint final public event accompanies the replay of the one-day conference and debates on a dedicated website. A compendium of antecedent research projects on climate change impacts on hydrology has been collated to summarise the state of the art prior to the two projects. A MOOC has been developed in conjunction with scientists to facilitate the comprehension of the Explore2 project, its design, and its application in adaptation studies.

Moreover, the Explore2 dataverse (https://entrepot.recherche.data.gouv.fr/dataverse/explore2) brings together a variety of products in an organised and searchable way, including thematic scientific reports, GIS layers, and other key metadata. It also contains three types of station datasheets aimed at locally contextualising outputs: hydrological model performance datasheets, projection results datasheets, and uncertainty quantification datasheets. The MEANDRE interactive data visualisation tool (https://meandre.explore2.inrae.fr/) offers a guided tour of the salient take-home messages and a comprehensive exploration of the Explore2 hydrological projection dataset. This multi-model dataset (GCMs/RCMs/bias correction methods/hydrological models) is made available through the DRIAS-Eau portal (https://drias-eau.fr/), which functions as a water mirror of the established DRIAS-Climat portal. The utilisation of this dataset for local climate change impact studies is facilitated by a methodological guide written as an adventure gamebook (https://livreec.inrae.fr/) and based on real-life studies carried out by water managers during the LIFE Eau&Climat project. Furthermore, experiments of sonification of hydrological projections offer a novel approach to apprehending future changes (https://explore2enmusique.github.io/).

This ecosystem has been met with great anticipation and acclaim by local to national-scale water managers, paving the way for ongoing local prospective studies. These will be able to confront future resources with the ecological needs of aquatic environments and human water usage.

This work is funded by the EU LIFE Eau&Climat project (LIFE19 GIC/FR/001259).