The Mediterranean region is a climate change hotspot, especially concerning issues of hydrological planning and urban water supply systems. In this context, the Jucar River Basin (Spain) presents an increase of frequency, intensity and duration of extreme meteorological phenomena, such as torrential rains, droughts or heat waves, which directly affect the quantity and quality of raw water available for drinking. This paper aims to analyze the effects of climate change on the raw water quality of the Jucar River Basin District, which mainly supplies the city of Valencia and its metropolitan area, in order to adapt drinking water treatments to new conditions and opportunities. For this purpose, we used observed data of water quality parameters from four stations and climate drivers from seven Earth system models of the latest Coupled Model Intercomparison Project—Phase 6. To model water quality (turbidity and conductivity) in the past and future scenarios, this study employs a backward stepwise regression taking into account daily values of mean temperature, maximum temperature, total rainfall and minimum and maximum relative humidity. Results showed that the model performance of the water quality simulation is more adequate for short moving-average windows (about 2–7 days) for turbidity and longer windows (about 30–60 days) for conductivity. Concerning the future scenarios, the most significant change was found in the projected increase of conductivity for the station of the Júcar river, between 4 and 11% by 2100, respectively, under the medium (SSP2–4.5) and pessimistic (SSP5–8.5) emission scenarios. The joint use of these types of management and monitoring tools may help the managers in charge of carrying out the different water treatments needed to apply a better plan to raw water and may help them identify future threats and investment needs to adapt the urban water supply systems to the changing conditions of raw water, such as turbidity or conductivity, as a consequence of climate change.

SICMA-Canarias is an innovative and open-access platform that enables the consultation of current, past, and future climatic conditions in the Canary Islands with a unique resolution of 100 metres by 100 metres. Developed within the framework of the European ARSINOE project, SICMA-Canarias combines advanced climatic data with predictive models extending up to the year 2100, covering key variables such as temperature, precipitation, water balance, heatwaves, and more. This tool is essential for the sustainable management of strategic sectors such as water, agriculture, and natural environment conservation, adapting to the microclimatic singularities of each island.

Meteorological droughts will become the principal factor driving compound hot-dry events and analysis thereof is therefore fundamental with regard to understanding future climate patterns. The average citizen knows little of geometry, but it plays an essential role in the characteristics of the droughts, by means of “fractional lengths”. We analysed the fractality of the meteorological droughts under the most recent climate change scenarios. A temporal fractality measure based upon the Cantor set reveals consensual changes in the behavior of droughts worldwide. Most regions will undergo a slight increase in fractality (up to +10% on average), particularly associated with an acceleration of the hydrological cycle and the Hadley cell expansion, with a shift towards the higher latitudes of the tropical edge in both hemispheres. Geometrical measures were applied to the dry spells (<1mm) simulated by Earth System Models of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6), showing more concentrated or unequal distribution of droughts in mid latitudes. Simultaneously, the polar regions might benefit from more regular precipitation patterns. Other inequality measures, such as the indices of Gini and Monjo, showed similar results. In general terms, the earth’s climate will be more fractal in the rainfall-related patterns, which likely means that the consequences will be more catastrophic for the human population.

Climate change is increasingly altering hydrological processes through rising temperatures, shifting precipitation regimes, and increasing atmospheric evaporative demand. These changes threaten water security, ecosystem resilience, and the provision of essential hydrological ecosystem services. This publication combines multiple management objectives with climate change considerations by viewing hydrological systems as interconnected networks of water storage, retention, infiltration, and release processes operating across multiple spatial and temporal scales. It introduces the Slow Hydrology (SH) framework, a climate-informed, catchment-scale approach that integrates climate projections, hydrological process understanding, ecosystem services, and adaptive management to strengthen resilience to climatic extremes. SH aims to reduce (slow down) the propagation of climatic stress by enhancing the capacity of landscapes to retain, store, infiltrate, and gradually release water. Rather than introducing new management concepts, its novelty lies in operationally linking future climate information with catchment-scale hydrological functioning, nature-based interventions, ecosystem service objectives, and adaptive decision-making within a single framework. The approach is illustrated through four contrasting European Living Labs established in the INTERLAYER project, demonstrating its applicability across diverse hydroclimatic settings. By explicitly connecting climate adaptation, water retention, ecosystem restoration, and adaptive management, the SH framework provides a transferable basis for translating European water policy objectives into catchment-scale planning. It supports the identification of interventions that simultaneously enhance water resilience, ecosystem functioning, and multiple societal benefits under uncertain future climate conditions.