Assess hydrological responses to a warming climate at the Lysina Critical Zone Observatory in Central Europe

Abstract

Climate warming is having profound effects on the hydrological cycle by increasing atmospheric demand, changing water availability, and snow seasonality. Europe suffered three distinct heat waves in 2019, and 11 of the 12 hottest years ever recorded took place in the past two decades, which will potentially change seasonal streamflow patterns and long-term trends. Central Europe exhibited six dry years in a row since 2014. This study uses data from a well-documented headwater catchment in Central Europe (Lysina) to explore hydrological responses to a warming climate.We applied a lumped parameter hydrologic model Brook90 and a distributed model Penn State Integrated Hydrologic Model (PIHM) to simulate long-term hydrological change under future climate scenarios. Both models performed well on historic streamflow and in agreement with each other according to the catchment water budget. In addition, PIHM was able to simulate lateral groundwater redistribution within the catchment validated by the groundwater table dynamics. The long-term trends in runoff and low flow were captured by PIHM only. We applied different EURO-CORDEX models with two emission scenarios (Representative Concentration Pathways RCP 4.5, 8.5) and found significant impacts on runoff and evapotranspiration (ET) for the period of 2071-2100. Results from both models suggested reduced runoff and increased ET, while the monthly distribution of runoff was different. We used this catchment study to understand the importance of subsurface processes in projection of hydrologic response to a warming climate.

Cycles‐L: A Coupled, 3‐D, Land Surface, Hydrologic, and Agroecosystem Landscape Model

“…Cycles‐L captured the interannual variability of discharge, and accurately predicted the timing of peak discharge events and base flow rates with minimum manual calibration. This is in line with the high fidelity of the PIHM family models demonstrated for multiple watersheds (Crow et al., 2018; Jepsen et al., 2016; Shi et al., 2013, 2015; Xiao et al., 2019; Zhang et al., 2018; Zheng et al., 2021). Compared with other spatially‐distributed agroecosystem hydrological systems, which usually have rectangular model grids, the unstructured triangular grids of Cycles‐L provides both computational efficiency and a better representation of local heterogeneity.…”

Spring yield trends in Czechia between 1971 and 2020

“…Prameny představují cenný zdroj informací o podzemních vodách. Nárůst teploty vzduchu ve střední Evropě v posledních desetiletích významně ovlivnil hydrologický cyklus, což způsobilo změny v hydrologickém režimu toků (Vlach et al 2020;Zheng et al 2021) a sezonnosti sněhu (Jenicek a Ledvinka 2020). Hlavním cílem této studie bylo zjistit statisticky významné trendy ve vydatnostech pramenů v Česku (obr.…”