Towards reduction of uncertainty on MEDCLUB (Mediterranean Climate Ungauged Basins)

Within the Science and Implementation Plan, under the general aim of reducing the uncertainty of prediction in ungauged basins, PUB recognize the need of investigating the plurality of hydroclimatic zones existing around the world. Major differences in hydrologic behavior are observed and a number of different zones exist, among these the Mediterranean. Similarly, a plurality of approaches (from empirical to SVAT models) and a plurality of enabling research programmes (investigating issues related to uncertainty, heterogeneity, field experiments, data assimilation, etc.) are pointed out. The role of the “geographical” working groups is to accomplish the PUB core research targets cutting across all the enabling research programmes with the general intent of constraining the predictive uncertainties making the best use of the available information and learning from a comparative evaluation of a variety of models applied to selected basins. The “Mediterranean”, rather than a mere geographical zone, is a large hydroclimatic area which matches one of the initial targets of PUB: “understand which processes are dominant or controlling at different scales in the different hydroclimatic regions of the world”. MEDCLUB mainly focus on field experiments at basin scale for the analysis of the Climate-Soil-Vegetation dynamics and their impact on hydrological processes and extremes and will work, in collaboration with the already estabilished PUB core research projects, with the aim of recognizing, within a Mediterranean context: (1) processes which are dominant or controlling at different scales, (2) the role of ecological functioning and human impact on hydrological basins and associated ecosystem, (3) a classification of model performance in terms of time and space scales, local climate, data requirements and type of application.