Particularly in the drought year of 2018 and after several subsequent very dry years, the general public In Germany also realised that climate change could jeopardise the water supply in many regions of Germany during periods of drought, which was previously thought to be secure. Scientific studies in south-west Germany show an increase in rapidly developing droughts, so-called ‚flash droughts’, reduced runoff in rivers and groundwater recharge. Even in the Black Forest known as a „water tower“ for south-western Germany, spring discharges in some municipalities have decreased to an unprecedented extent in recent years of drought. In turn, heavy rainfall events lead to natural contamination of the springs, meaning that they cannot be used at times. As part of the consortium project ‘Sustainable water management of municipal water suppliers in times of climate change (ZuKoWa)’, funded by the BMBF for three years from 1 April 2025, in which universities, municipal water suppliers, and private companies are working together with Black Forest municipalities, a package of methods and measures is to be developed and implemented operationally using the example of the spring water supply in the Central Black Forest in Bühl, Bad Peterstal-Grießbach, Nordrach, Oberharmersbach and Zell am Harmersbach. 

 At KIT, the Institute of Applied Geosciences (PD Dr E. Eiche) is carrying out chemical analyses of water quality as part of ZuKoWa. Together with the KIT Institute for Meteorology and Climate Research - Troposphere (IMKTRO) and the Institute for Environmental Sciences and Geography at the University of Potsdam, up to eight weather stations will be set up in the study area - both in open areas and in vegetation stands. The aim is to improve the monitoring of precipitation. This will also be achieved by quality-checking the high-resolution operational RADOLAN precipitation product of the German Weather Service with rain collector data in the region that is not used for its calibration. The new project stations and those of other operators will be used for this purpose. In addition, high-resolution meteorological model simulations will be used to further improve the spatial and intensity distributions of precipitation in the study region. IMKTRO will provide waterworks operators with a forecasting module of extreme events and droughts as well as projections of precipitation and drought frequencies in the coming decades.  

ZukoWa pursues a transdisciplinary approach that does justice to the complexity of the problems in municipal water supply. The results are to be tested for their transferability to other regions such as the Allgäu and the Harz. The overall project is being coordinated by Prof St Norra from the University of Potsdam.