HESS Opinions: "Climate, hydrology, energy, water: recognizing uncertainty and seeking sustainability"
Name
Koutsoyiannis-2009-HESS Opinions Climate, hydrology, energy, water recognizing uncertainty and seeking sustainability.pdf
Size
1.44 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
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Author(s)
Koutsoyiannis, D.
Makropoulos, C.
Langousis, Andreas
Baki, S.
Efstratiadis, A.
Christofides, A.
Karavokiros, G.
Mamassis, N.
Date Issued
February 2009
Journal
Hydrology and Earth System Sciences
Publisher
European Geosciences Union / Copernicus
Citation
Koutsoyiannis, D. et al. “HESS Opinions: ‘Climate, Hydrology, Energy, Water: Recognizing Uncertainty and Seeking Sustainability’.” Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 13.2 (2009) : 247-257. © Author(s) 2009.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Since 1990 extensive funds have been spent on
research in climate change. Although Earth Sciences, including
climatology and hydrology, have benefited significantly,
progress has proved incommensurate with the effort
and funds, perhaps because these disciplines were perceived
as “tools” subservient to the needs of the climate change enterprise
rather than autonomous sciences. At the same time,
research was misleadingly focused more on the “symptom”,
i.e. the emission of greenhouse gases, than on the “illness”,
i.e. the unsustainability of fossil fuel-based energy production.
Unless energy saving and use of renewable resources
become the norm, there is a real risk of severe socioeconomic
crisis in the not-too-distant future. A framework for drastic
paradigm change is needed, in which water plays a central
role, due to its unique link to all forms of renewable energy,
from production (hydro and wave power) to storage (for
time-varying wind and solar sources), to biofuel production
(irrigation). The extended role of water should be considered
in parallel to its other uses, domestic, agricultural and
industrial. Hydrology, the science of water on Earth, must
move towards this new paradigm by radically rethinking its
fundamentals, which are unjustifiably trapped in the 19thcentury
myths of deterministic theories and the zeal to eliminate
uncertainty. Guidance is offered by modern statistical
and quantum physics, which reveal the intrinsic character of
uncertainty/entropy in nature, thus advancing towards a new
understanding and modelling of physical processes, which is
central to the effective use of renewable energy and water
resources.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
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Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/13/247/2009/
