Lessons from the 2018 drought for management of local water supplies in upland areas: A tracer‐based assessment

Fennell, Jessica; Geris, Josie; Wilkinson, Mark E.; Daalmans, Ronald; Soulsby, Christopher

doi:10.1002/hyp.13867

Cited by 18 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 142 publications

(215 reference statements)

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“…However, for the energy-limited ecosystem, a strong decline in growing season NetQ (159 %) was observed in 2018 compared to the average for 2015 to 2017, which, eventually, is expected to affect streamflow. Although streamflows are buffered by groundwater, reduced recharge will deplete regional water storage reserves, as shown by Fennell et al (2020) for a catchment in 2018 in Scotland. Long-lasting droughts can affect the soil water storage even in the following year if the winter P is not sufficient to fully replenish the depleted soil water storage (Riedel and Weber, 2020).…”

Section: Response Of Water Fluxes To Climatic Changesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Response of water fluxes and biomass production to climate change in permanent grassland soil ecosystems

Forstner

Groh

Vremec

et al. 2021

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Effects of climate change on the ecosystem productivity and water fluxes have been studied in various types of experiments. However, it is still largely unknown whether and how the experimental approach itself affects the results of such studies. We employed two contrasting experimental approaches, using high-precision weighable monolithic lysimeters, over a period of 4 years to identify and compare the responses of water fluxes and aboveground biomass to climate change in permanent grassland. The first, manipulative, approach is based on controlled increases of atmospheric CO2 concentration and surface temperature. The second, observational, approach uses data from a space-for-time substitution along a gradient of climatic conditions. The Budyko framework was used to identify if the soil ecosystem is energy limited or water limited. Elevated temperature reduced the amount of non-rainfall water, particularly during the growing season in both approaches. In energy-limited grassland ecosystems, elevated temperature increased the actual evapotranspiration and decreased aboveground biomass. As a consequence, elevated temperature led to decreasing seepage rates in energy-limited systems. Under water-limited conditions in dry periods, elevated temperature aggravated water stress and, thus, resulted in reduced actual evapotranspiration. The already small seepage rates of the drier soils remained almost unaffected under these conditions compared to soils under wetter conditions. Elevated atmospheric CO2 reduced both actual evapotranspiration and aboveground biomass in the manipulative experiment and, therefore, led to a clear increase and change in seasonality of seepage. As expected, the aboveground biomass productivity and ecosystem efficiency indicators of the water-limited ecosystems were negatively correlated with an increase in aridity, while the trend was unclear for the energy-limited ecosystems. In both experimental approaches, the responses of soil water fluxes and biomass production mainly depend on the ecosystems' status with respect to energy or water limitation. To thoroughly understand the ecosystem response to climate change and be able to identify tipping points, experiments need to embrace sufficiently extreme boundary conditions and explore responses to individual and multiple drivers, such as temperature, CO2 concentration, and precipitation, including non-rainfall water. In this regard, manipulative and observational climate change experiments complement one another and, thus, should be combined in the investigation of climate change effects on grassland.

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Section: Response Of Water Fluxes To Climatic Changesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Response of water fluxes and biomass production to climate change in permanent grassland soil ecosystems

Forstner

Groh

Vremec

et al. 2021

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Furthermore, the drier winters might led to larger storage capacity of water in the soil. In the year 2018, Northern Europe was affected by an extreme drought and extreme low-flow conditions were recorded (Bakke et al 2020;Fennell et al 2020). A strong increase in mean temperature from 2017 (mean T 3.1°C) to the year 2018 (mean T 6.6°C) in Volbu was observed which might have affected the decoupled coherency between discharge and precipitation, SWC, SWE, and ET in the recent years.…”

Section: Long-term Annual and Seasonal Changesmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…Furthermore, it did not show any significant trends in low flows, assuming that it has quite stable conditions also during dry periods. Groundwater is important for drought resilience of a catchment (Fennell et al 2020).…”

Section: Long-term Annual and Seasonal Changesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hydrology under change: long-term annual and seasonal changes in small agricultural catchments in Norway

et al. 2021

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In agricultural catchments, hydrological processes are highly linked to particle and nutrient loss and can lead to a degradation of the ecological status of the water. Global warming and land use changes influence the hydrological regime. This effect is especially strong in cold regions. In this study, we used long-term hydrological monitoring data (22–26 years) from small agricultural catchments in Norway. We applied a Mann–Kendall trend and wavelet coherence analysis to detect annual and seasonal changes and to evaluate the coupling between runoff, climate, and water sources. The trend analysis showed a significant increase in the annual and seasonal mean air temperature. In all sites, hydrological changes were more difficult to detect. Discharge increased in autumn and winter, but this trend did not hold for all catchments. We found a strong coherence between discharge and precipitation, between discharge and snow water equivalent and discharge and soil water storage capacity. We detected different hydrological regimes of rain and snow-dominated catchments. The catchments responded differently to changes due to their location and inherent characteristics. Our results highlight the importance of studying local annual and seasonal changes in hydrological regimes to understand the effect of climate and the importance for site-specific management plans.

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“…In addition, consideration of water ages and the spatio-temporal dynamics of hydrological connectivity can reveal how storageflux dynamics and hydrological source areas are affected by regeneration (Bergstrom et al, 2016;Kuppel et al, 2020;Tetzlaff et al, 2014;Sprenger et al, 2019). This has implications for ecosystem resilience to climatic extremes (Fennell et al, 2020;Kleine et al, 2020;Smith et al, 2020), generation of low/high flows Nippgen et al, 2015), and redistribution of water and solutes (Bergstrom et al, 2016;Turnbull and Wainwright, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Structural changes to forests during regeneration affect water flux partitioning, water ages and hydrological connectivity: Insights from tracer-aided ecohydrological modelling

Neill¹,

Birkel²,

Maneta³

et al. 2021

Preprint

Self Cite

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Abstract. Increasing rates of biodiversity loss are adding momentum to efforts seeking to restore or rewild degraded landscapes. Here, we investigated the effects of natural forest regeneration on water flux partitioning, water ages and hydrological connectivity, using the tracer-aided ecohydrological model EcH2O-iso. The model was calibrated using ~3.5 years of diverse ecohydrological and isotope datasets available for a catchment in the Scottish Highlands, an area where the impetus for regeneration of native pinewoods is growing. We then simulated two land cover change scenarios that incorporated forests at early (thicket) and late (old-open forest) stages of regeneration, respectively, and compared these to a present-day baseline simulation. Changes to forest structure (proportional vegetation cover, vegetation heights and leaf area index of pine trees) were modelled for each stage. Establishment of thicket forest had the greatest effect on water partitioning/ages and connectivity, with increased losses to interception evaporation driving reductions in below-canopy fluxes (soil evaporation, groundwater recharge and streamflow) and generally slower rates of water turnover. Effects on streamflow were most evident for low and moderate summer flows rather than winter high flows. Whilst full forest regeneration was limited to hillslopes, resultant changes to the spatial dynamics of flux partitioning could also cause drying out of the valley bottom. The more open nature of the older forest generally resulted in water fluxes, ages and connectivity characteristics returning towards baseline conditions. Our work implies that the ecohydrological consequences of natural forest regeneration on degraded land depend on the structural characteristics of the forest at different stages of development. Consequently, future land cover change investigations need to move beyond consideration of simple forest vs. non-forest scenarios to inform management that effectively balances landscape restoration with demand for ecosystem services. Tracer-aided ecohydrological models were also shown to be useful tools for land cover change simulations and further potential of such models was highlighted.

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Lessons from the 2018 drought for management of local water supplies in upland areas: A tracer‐based assessment

Cited by 18 publications

References 142 publications

Response of water fluxes and biomass production to climate change in permanent grassland soil ecosystems

Response of water fluxes and biomass production to climate change in permanent grassland soil ecosystems

Hydrology under change: long-term annual and seasonal changes in small agricultural catchments in Norway

Structural changes to forests during regeneration affect water flux partitioning, water ages and hydrological connectivity: Insights from tracer-aided ecohydrological modelling

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