FutureWater took part in a technical modeling workshop hosted by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Manila, bringing its expertise in glacio-hydrological modeling and climate adaptation investment planning to discussions on how to build the analytical backbone for resilient river basins across Asia. The workshop forms part of the inception phase of the 3POLE4FOOD project, FutureWater’s contribution to ADB’s Resilient River Basin Initiative (RRBI) in the Hindu Kush–Himalaya (HKH) region.
The day-long session gathered around ADB staff and external experts to exchange experiences on integrated modeling and to chart the conceptual design of the computational framework that will underpin RRBI’s work. The central question: what kind of analytical tools should the initiative develop so that ADB’s developing member countries (DMCs) can identify, prioritize, and finance climate adaptation investments in their river basins?
FutureWater’s role: from glaciers to investment decisions
Working alongside Wageningen University & Research (WUR), FutureWater is developing and applying the models that describe mountain hydrology and food production across the HKH. The team’s approach couples SPHY, FutureWater’s spatial processes in hydrology model, with the LPJmL crop-hydrology model, driven by climate forcing derived from climate model ensembles. Together these tools capture the chain from snow and glacier melt in the high mountains through to downstream water availability and agricultural production — the foundation any climate adaptation investment plan in the region depends on.
A key outcome of the workshop — shaped in part by a contribution from FutureWater’s Johannes Hunink — was consensus on a three-level modeling architecture that ensures consistency from regional screening down to individual interventions:
- Regional level — for awareness raising and identifying hotspots, where the SPHY-LPJmL models excel as the dynamic baseline;
- River basin level — for water allocation and investment portfolio development, using network-based models such as WEAP and RIBASIM that DMCs already know and trust;
- Intervention level — for feasibility studies and detailed engineering design which rely on detailed physically-based methods and models like AquaCrop, SWAT, HEC-RAS, etc.
Each level builds on the one above, with outputs from the regional models forcing or informing in some way the inputs of more detailed tools. Participants stressed prioritizing credibility and local buy-in over model detail, favoring a “planning toolkit” approach that integrates trusted local tools rather than building monolithic, hard-to-maintain decision-support systems. There was broad recognition that river basin simulation models, combined with benefit-cost analysis, offer a more practical route to bankable projects than fully integrated hydro-economic models.
Next steps
The workshop conclusions will guide the development of terms of reference for the next phase of RRBI’s technical work, including a review of modeling capacities and tools already available in the DMCs, and the launch of a Community of Practice. For FutureWater, the workshop marks an important early milestone in the 3POLE4FOOD inception phase, anchoring its glacio-hydrological modeling and adaptation-investment expertise within ADB’s wider effort to make Asia’s river basins more resilient to climate change.
