Future droughts, water shortages in parts of western Europe

Thomsen, Rikke

doi:10.1029/93eo00167

Cited by 14 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…This is reflected in Thomsen (1993), who stressed that the correlation between the NAO index and precipitation is higher in those parts of Western Europe where precipitation patterns are not influenced by mountains (Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands, western Germany and the west coast of France). This should also be taken into consideration when interpreting the results.…”

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confidence: 96%

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Have streamflow droughts in Europe become more severe or frequent?

Hisdal

Stahl

Tallaksen

et al. 2001

Intl Journal of Climatology

324

260

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Changes in the magnitude and frequency of droughts will have extensive impacts on water management, agriculture and aquatic ecosystems. With the projected global temperature increase, scientists generally agree that the global hydrological cycle will intensify and suggest that extremes will become or have already become more common. In this study, a pan-European dataset of more than 600 daily streamflow records from the European Water Archive (EWA) was analysed to detect spatial and temporal changes in streamflow droughts. Four different time periods were analysed: 1962-1990, 1962-1995, 1930-1995 and 1911-1995. The focus was on hydrological droughts derived by applying the threshold level approach, which defines droughts as periods during which the streamflow is below a certain threshold. The Annual Maximum Series (AMS) of drought severity and the frequency of droughts in Partial Duration Series (PDS) were studied. Despite several reports on recent droughts in Europe, the non-parametric Mann-Kendall test and a resampling test for trend detection showed that it is not possible to conclude that drought conditions in general have become more severe or frequent. The period analysed and the selection of stations strongly influenced the regional pattern. For most stations, no significant changes were detected. However, distinct regional differences were found. Within the period 1962-1990 examples of increasing drought deficit volumes were found in Spain, the eastern part of Eastern Europe and in large parts of the UK, whereas decreasing drought deficit volumes occurred in large parts of Central Europe and in the western part of Eastern Europe. Trends in drought deficit volumes or durations could, to a large extent, be explained through changes in precipitation or artificial influences in the catchment. Changes in the number of drought events per year were determined by the combined effect of climate and catchment characteristics such as storage capacity. The importance of the time period chosen for trend analysis is illustrated using two very long time series.

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confidence: 96%

“…Several studies (Thomsen, 1993;Arnell, 1994;Hisdal et al, 1995) have shown that wet and dry years tend to cluster. Therefore, adding or subtracting a few years of data in the time series may lead to a substantial change in the trend.…”

Section: Influence Of Time Periodmentioning

confidence: 99%

Have streamflow droughts in Europe become more severe or frequent?

Hisdal

Stahl

Tallaksen

et al. 2001

Intl Journal of Climatology

324

260

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Increases in precipitation have also been reported for north and west Scotland (Perry, 2006), parts of Germany (Hänsel et al, 2007) and France (Thomsen, 1990), Sweden (Alexandersson, 2004) and Norway (Hanssen-Bauer, 2005); said increases seem especially connected to the northern latitudes (Klein Tank and Können, 2003) and exposure to the Westerlies (Heino et al, 2008). Likewise, the Danish area has experienced climate change for the last century, resulting in a significant increase in precipitation and temperature (Jeppesen et al, 2011;Thomsen, 1993). The increase appears to have been unevenly distributed, with the largest increase occurring in the western and southwestern part of the country (Kronvang et al, 2006;Larsen et al, 2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Historical trends in precipitation and stream discharge at the Skjern River catchment, Denmark

Karlsson

Sonnenborg

Jensen

et al. 2014

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract.A 133 yr data set from the 1055 km 2 Skjern River catchment in western Denmark has been analysed with respect to precipitation, temperature, evapotranspiration and discharge. The precipitation series have been tested and corrected using the standard normal homogeneity test and subsequently corrected for undercatch. The degree of change in the climatic variables is examined using the non-parametric Mann-Kendall test. During the last 133 yr the area has experienced a significant change in precipitation of 26 % and a temperature change of 1.4 • C, leading to increases in river discharge of 52 % and groundwater recharge of 86 %. A lumped conceptual hydrological model, NAM, was calibrated on the period 1951-1980 and showed generally an excellent match between simulated and observed discharge. The capability of the hydrological model to predict climate change impact was investigated by looking at performances outside the calibration period. The results showed a reduced model fit, especially for recent time periods (after the 1980s), and not all hydrological changes could be explained. This might indicate that hydrological models cannot be expected to predict climate change impacts on discharge as accurately in the future, compared to the performance under present conditions, where they can be calibrated. The (simulated) stream discharge was subsequently analysed using high flow and drought indices based on the threshold method. The extreme signal was found to depend highly on the period chosen as reference to normal. The analysis indicated that no significant amplitude increase of the hydrograph for both wet and dry extremes could be found superimposed on the overall discharge increase.

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“…However, rainfall deficiencies in summer and winter can have different hydrological impacts depending on the pre-ceding levels of storage. Historical droughts were analysed by Thomsen (1993) at selected European stations for the period from 1750 to 1989; results were that both types (summer and winter) can occur, encompass large areas and persist for several years, although dry winter and spring seasons were less frequent during both the 18th and 19th centuries throughout the Mediterranean (Pauling & Paeth 2006, Diodato 2007). More recent paleoclimatic reconstructions for Europe (Masson-Delmotte et al 2005) indicate that, when climate changes from cooling to warming, the frequency of extremely dry years is doubled.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Drought stress patterns in Italy using agro-climatic indicators

Diodato¹,

Bellocchi²

2008

Clim. Res.

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This paper examines the drought patterns in Italy for the period from 1961 to 2006. The condition of drought was considered from an agricultural perspective, using the variability in the annual yield of maize as an indication of climate patterns. A procedure is presented where weather datasets, a drought stress index (MCDI: Mediterranean crop drought index) and geo-spatial analysis are used to assess the spatial distribution and the general evolution of drought. The regional perspective presented characterizes the general climatology of Italy and compares the climate to a severe drought that occurred in 2003. This study identifies some areas (such as major islands, the central Tyrrhenian coast and south-eastern zones) where agricultural drought is likely to be a problem. In general, the temporal patterns outlined in this study indicate an increase in drought over Italy. Considering the poor resolution of global output results for regional and sub-regional assessments, the analysis carried out provides background data and a methodology for climatologists, ecologists and others interested in developing bio-climate patterns within large geographical regions.KEY WORDS: Climate change · Drought · Italy · Mediterranean crop drought index pattern · Geo-spatial analysis · Temporal analysis Resale or republication not permitted without written consent of the publisherClim Res 36: [53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63] 2008 ceding levels of storage. Historical droughts were analysed by Thomsen (1993) at selected European stations for the period from 1750 to 1989; results were that both types (summer and winter) can occur, encompass large areas and persist for several years, although dry winter and spring seasons were less frequent during both the 18th and 19th centuries throughout the Mediterranean (Pauling & Paeth 2006, Diodato 2007. More recent paleoclimatic reconstructions for Europe (Masson-Delmotte et al. 2005) indicate that, when climate changes from cooling to warming, the frequency of extremely dry years is doubled. This was also found by Beniston & Stephenson (2004), indicating that extreme drought events are becoming more frequent. In this context, drought is currently an environmental problem afflicting Mediterranean and European ecosystems with ever increasing importance (Conedera et al. 2003). The effect of droughts may be of regional or continental concern, including the decrease of precipitation and soil moisture or the increase of crop yield variability and reduction in suitable areas for traditional cultivations (Olesen & Bindi 2002). In the last decades, yield losses from drought events have significantly increased in Europe, which suggests trends towards both increasing vulnerability in some regions (Lloyd-Hughes & Saunders 2002) and increasing length of dry spells (Klein Tank & Konnen 2003).The analysis of moisture extremes across Europe (Briffa et al. 1994) showed strong decadal-scale variability in dry-spell frequency. Although drought can be important in a sequence of years with...

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Future droughts, water shortages in parts of western Europe

Cited by 14 publications

References 2 publications

Have streamflow droughts in Europe become more severe or frequent?

Have streamflow droughts in Europe become more severe or frequent?

Historical trends in precipitation and stream discharge at the Skjern River catchment, Denmark

Drought stress patterns in Italy using agro-climatic indicators

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