Hydro-Meteorological Drought Projections into the 21-st Century for Selected Polish Catchments

Abstract

Abstract:The nature of drought conditions is estimated using a range of indices describing different aspects of drought events. Three drought indices are evaluated, namely the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) and Standardized Runoff Index (SRI), using observed hydroclimatic data and applying them to hydro-meteorological projections into the 21st century. The first two indices are evaluated using only meteorological variables and from this point of view, are better suited to meteorological drought projections than the third index, SRI, which is based on catchment discharge and represents hydrological drought. We assess information contained in those indices and their suitability to catchment scale climate projection drought assessment in ten selected Polish catchments, representing different hydro-climatic conditions, which are used as a case study. Projections of climatic variables (precipitation and temperature) are obtained from the EURO-CORDEX initiative derived from seven climate models at a grid resolution of 12.5 km for the time period 1971-2100. Future runoff projections for the catchments are obtained using a conceptual rainfall-runoff model (HBV). The results of analyses of indices based on observations in the reference period show consistent estimates for most of the catchments. Hydro-meteorological climate model projections for three periods, including the reference period 1971-2000, and two 30-year periods, near-future 2021-2050 and far-future 2071-2100, are used to estimate changes of future drought conditions in the catchments studied. The results show a substantial variation of temporal drought patterns over the catchments and their dependence on projected precipitation and temperature variables and the type of indices applied. Of the three indices studied, only SPEI projections indicate drier conditions in the catchments in the far-future period. The other two indices, SPI and SRI, indicate wetter climates in the future.

Changes in low and high flows in the Vistula and the Odra basins: Model projections in the European‐scale context

“…Two recent drought studies listed in Table (Papadimitriou et al, ; Roudier et al, ) and two flood studies listed in Table (Alfieri et al, ; Roudier et al, ) fulfill the above criteria for comparison. Additionally, two relevant studies conducted specifically for Poland have been identified, one for low flows (Meresa, Osuch, & Romanowicz, ) and one for floods (Osuch, Lawrence, Meresa, Napiórkowski, & Romanowicz, ), and these are also discussed below.…”

“…Our QL projections can also be compared to the Standardized Runoff Index (a runoff equivalent of the broadly used Standardized Precipitation Index) projections for 10 Polish catchments (of which nine lie in the VOB) for the near and FF under RCP 4.5 simulated by the Hydrologiska Byråns Vattenbalansavdelning (HBV) model forced by the bias‐corrected EURO‐CORDEX ensemble of seven climate models (Meresa et al, ). While in most of catchments, they showed consistently wetter conditions (i.e., decreased probability of drought recurrence, decreased drought severity) in agreement with our projections, in some catchments, the spread due to climate models was very high.…”

“…Osuch et al () applied the same HBV model as Meresa et al (), also forced by the bias‐corrected EURO‐CORDEX ensemble, for projection of the mean annual maximum flow and 10‐, 20‐, 50‐, and 100‐year floods for nine Polish catchments (of which eight lie in the VOB) for the near and FF under RCPs 4.5 and 8.5. Their study corroborates our findings on (a) an overall increase in projected flood hazard in the VOB, (b) a rapid acceleration of hazard with time, and (c) slightly higher changes for RCP 8.5 than for RCP 4.5.…”

Climatic changes on Szczecin Seashore and their impact on river flows

“…Recently, a study into the impact of climate change (precipitation and temperature patterns) on flows in Poland was conducted by Piniewski et al (2016Piniewski et al ( , 2017a Osuch et al (2016Osuch et al ( , 2017, Meresa et al (2016) and Romanowicz et al (2016). Most of these studies mainly focused on the prediction of frequency and severity of droughts and floods.…”

The impacts of changes in climate and land use on hydrological processes

“…A number of studies have been published on the influence of climate changes on floods and droughts Romanowicz et al 2016;Meresa et al 2016;Kundzewicz et al 2017a). However, the picture of future changes is far from clear.…”