Extreme Hydro-Meteorological Events Influence to Water Quality of Small Rivers in Urban Area: A Case Study in Northeast Poland

Abstract

This paper presents an impact of hydro-meteorological extreme events and urban catchment to water quality in small rivers in Białystok (Poland). The results from a five-year study have taken into account droughts, continuous precipitation, and storm precipitation causing flash floods. Extreme hydro-meteorological events has a different impact on the physical and chemical parameters of water. It was found that the largest change in water quality occurs on the 2nd day after the rainfall and changed concentration of some chemical parameters persists for a long time. The majority but, what's important, not all of them are diluted after floods and concentrated after droughts. Flash flooding results in a large increase concentrations of DOC and selected forms of phosphorus. Higher values of EC, Eh, Mg 2+ , HCO 3-, Cl-, SiO 3 2-, NO 3-N, TN were observed during drought compared to the average values from 2014-2018. A high degree of naturalness of the river valley and increased water retention results in a decreased concentration of NH 4 +-N, DOC and phosphorus forms. The buffer zone plays an important role in limiting the inflow of pollutants and nutrients from the catchment area. That is why it is worth undertaking restoration of river valleys in urban areas. A growing interest in extreme weather events is reflected in many papers examined rainfall, flooding, heat, and drought. The research encompass all continents, but less than 10% of studies were focused in urban areas. This is surprising because urbanized areas are most exposed to hydrometeorological extremes due to the high concentration of people and infrastructure 1. Extreme events are defined across six major disciplines that examine them (climatology, earth science, hydrology, ecology, engineering and social science) 1. In our work, we focus on the definition, which is based on the assignment of any flow amplitude thresholds that identify floods and low flows in such a way that exceeding these thresholds is understood as the beginning of an extreme hydrological event. Floods resulting from storm precipitation refer to zone of high water levels. Floods resulting from continuous precipitation refer to above average multi-year flows. Continuous precipitation causes a slight increase in water levels in the river, but significantly affects its quality 2. The analysis of no-rain periods concerns the zone of low water levels. Extreme hydro-meteorological events, such as heavy precipitations or lack thereof, floods and droughts, are becoming more intense and frequent due to climate change and can strongly impact water quality 3. Most studies focus on the amount of water, on whether it is too little or too much 4 , but there also numerous studies on the effects of climate extremes on water quality. It is common knowledge that urbanisation drastically affects changes in river hydro-morphology and water quality. The problem of extreme hydro-meteorological phenomena is intensifying in the area of changing climatic conditions 5. Urbanisation affects the change of the water...

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