How eWaterCycle Helps Assess the Impact of Climate Change
February 8, 2026
Water is everywhere in our lives – in farming, drinking water, energy production, and ecosystem health. But surprisingly, many key parts of the water cycle are hard to measure accurately, especially across larger areas.
Take rainfall, for example: even within a small distance, measurements can vary a lot. It may rain more heavily just a few meters away, or trees and vegetation can affect how much water reaches the ground. When we zoom out to tens or even hundreds of square kilometers, these differences become even more significant.
To make sense of this complexity, hydrologists focus on catchments – areas where precipitation (rain, snow, hail) ultimately drains into the same river system. By gathering available precipitation data and combining it with hydrological knowledge, researchers build models to estimate how rainfall turns into river runoff.
This matters in very practical ways: hydrological modeling supports decision-making for flood prevention, irrigation planning, and understanding climate change impacts. And that last point is becoming increasingly urgent. Climate change is happening – but what does it mean locally? Will a region face more flooding, longer droughts, or a mix of both? These questions affect farmers, policymakers, and communities alike. Hydrological models can help researchers explore future scenarios and provide evidence that supports climate resilience planning.
What is hydrology?
Have you ever wondered what happens to rainfall when it hits the ground?
Some water follows a straightforward path: it runs into drainage systems, reaches rivers, and eventually flows into larger bodies of water. From there, it evaporates and continues the cycle.
But a large part of rainfall does not behave that simply. Some water is captured by vegetation (this is called interception). Some infiltrates into the soil and becomes part of unsaturated flows, slowly moving through different soil layers. Some contributes to groundwater, and later returns to rivers through groundwater outflow. This is the field of hydrology – the science of how water moves through landscapes and ecosystems, above and below the surface.
eWaterCycle – making hydrological modeling more accessible
eWaterCycle is a hydrological modeling software package and platform designed to make working with hydrological models more accessible – not only to specialists, but to a wider group of researchers and practitioners.
One of its strengths is that it helps users move from “I have data” to “I can actually interpret what this means for droughts and floods.”
The platform includes workflows that can support drought and flood analysis in a more automated way. In many cases, users can start by providing a region of interest, while the workflow supports the rest of the process. For example, in a small catchment in Zimbabwe, results from the analysis suggest that extreme river discharges may occur more frequently in the future. [1]
Beyond this, eWaterCycle also supports more advanced modeling approaches. Researchers can explore scenarios such as irrigation impacts by simulating irrigation plots and evaluating how they affect groundwater and runoff.
This type of modeling can help answer questions such as:
- Where irrigation could be beneficial
- Which areas may not need irrigation at all
- How land use choices could influence long-term water availability
From research to real-world relevance
eWaterCycle is already being used in applied research contexts. For example, one student project investigated the Kariba Dam (Zambia), focusing on how drought conditions could contribute to future power outages. [2] The results delivered a clear message: power outages linked to drought are likely to occur more often in the future, highlighting a concrete climate risk that authorities can prepare for.
Building capacity through digital tools and hydrological modeling
As part of SAFE4ALL activities, eWaterCycle was also presented to stakeholders during recent Living Labs in Ghana, Kenya, and Zimbabwe, supporting practical engagement beyond the research community.
Hands-on training with the eWaterCycle platform introduced participants to the HBV rainfall-runoff model and the fundamentals of hydrological modeling. Graduate students, lecturers, and agency representatives explored how to configure and interpret models to support water management and climate resilience efforts.
References
[1] https://www.ewatercycle.org/projects/workshops/tutorials_examples/6_Africa/4_analysis_Africa.html
Delft University of Technology
Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) is internationally recognised for its expertise in water science and hydrological research. Through its Department of Water Management, TU Delft has long-standing cooperation with partners across Africa, working on topics such as safe drinking water, flood forecasting and early warning systems, reservoir and irrigation management, drought monitoring, ecosystem analysis, and water quality assessment.
Within SAFE4ALL, TU Delft leads co-creation activities in Living Labs and supports the operationalisation of the eWaterCycle tool. By combining advanced modeling, data assimilation, and stakeholder engagement, TU Delft contributes to the identification and deployment of digital tools and approaches that strengthen climate resilience in real-world contexts.