On October 8 and 9, 2025, the 2^nd Annual Meeting of the MegaWat project was held at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (Klosterneuburg). MegaWat is an international initiative dedicated to assessing the impact of megadroughts on European high mountain regions. FutureWater, which is leading the Work Package on Resilience and Adaptation, presented progress on evaluating the impact of megadroughts on the water security of snow-dependent water-supply systems.

During the meeting, partners shared the latest developments in generating extreme climate scenarios using the CHELSEA algorithm for scaling climate forcings, hydrological modeling in high mountain zones with the T&C (Tethys-Chloris) model, and characterizing the behavior of snowmelt-dependent catchments. MegaWat is applied in three pilot regions: the Pyrenees (Aragón-Arga, Gállego, and Cinca-Segre), the Apennines (Tiber basin), and the Swiss Alps, allowing assessment of megadrought impacts on water security.

FutureWater updated the status of activities in Work Package on Resilience and Adaptation (WP4), highlighting advances in resilience characterization for the Spanish Pyrenees pilot. Here, the WEAP tool is used to quantify risks under extreme drought scenarios such as those experienced in Australia (1996–2010) and Chile (2010 and ongoing). Additionally, FutureWater has developed the “Resilience Calculator” tool and continues enhancing InfoSequia to provide early forecasts—key for efficient management of water for domestic, agricultural, and industrial supply.

MegaWat is currently at an intermediate stage. The meeting defined upcoming milestones focused on strengthening result transfer among teams, increasing stakeholder engagement, and publishing findings in high-impact scientific journals.

The project MegaWat has received funding from the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), the Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI), Dutch Research Council (NWO), National Research Council (CNR) and the European Union’s Horizon Europe Programme under the 2022 Joint Transnational Call of the European Partnership Water4all (Grant Agreement n°101060874)