Scenario-neutral climate impact assessments are being used increasingly to assess water resource system responses to possible climate changes. The purpose of such assessments is to identify system sensitivity to a range of plausible climate conditions, often including an evaluation of the joint effect of multiple climate stressors. Given the large number of climate variables and associated statistics (averages, seasonality, intermittency, extremes, etc.) that could plausibly change and impact on system performance, it is essential that scenario-neutral assessments focus on those to which the system is most sensitive. A generic approach to identifying these ‘critical’ climate conditions is presented and tested on the Lake Como reservoir in Northern Italy considering two system objectives: irrigation deficit and flood reliability. Results indicate that different climate conditions are critical for the two objectives, and that the choice of which climate conditions to include has a significant effect on the climate impact assessment outcome.

与情景无关的气候影响评估越来越多地用于评估水资源系统对可能的气候变化的反应。此类评估的目的是确定系统对一系列可能的气候条件的敏感性，通常包括对多个气候压力源共同作用的评估。鉴于大量的气候变量和相关的统计信息（平均值，季节性，间断性，极端值等）可能会发生变化并影响系统性能，因此，与情景无关的评估必须着重于系统最敏感的评估。提出了一种识别这些“关键”气候条件的通用方法，并在意大利北部的科莫湖水库中进行了测试，考虑了两个系统目标：灌溉不足和洪水可靠性。