Mountain Hydroclimatology and Snow Seasonality—<i>Perspectives on climate impacts, snow seasonality and hydrological change in mountain environments</i>

Jong, Carmen de; Lawler, Damian; Essery, Richard

doi:10.1002/hyp.7193

Cited by 47 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…Altitudinal gradients in temperature and precipitation ensure that headwaters receive more precipitation and have lower evapotranspiration rates than adjacent lowlands (Viviroli et al, 2004;De Jong et al, 2009;López and Justribó, 2010). Moreover, in mountain regions at high and mid latitudes a large amount of precipitation falls as snow, which is stored frozen in winter.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of climate evolution and land use changes on water yield in the ebro basin

López‐Moreno

Vicente‐Serrano

Morán-Tejéda

et al. 2011

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

191

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Abstract. In this study the climatic and hydrological trends across 88 sub-basins of the Ebro River basin were analyzed for the period . A new database of climate information and river flows for the entire basin facilitated a spatially distributed assessment of climate-runoff relationships. It constitutes the first assessment of water yield evolution across the whole Ebro basin, a very representative example of large Mediterranean rivers. The results revealed a marked decrease in river discharges in most of the subbasins. Moreover, a number of changes in the seasonality of the river regime was found, resulting from dam regulation and a decrease in snowpack in the headwaters. Significant and positive trends in temperature were observed across most of the basin, whereas most of the precipitation series showed negative coefficients, although the decrease in magnitude was low. The time evolution of the residuals from empirical models that relate climate and runoff in each sub-basin provided evidence that climate alone does not explain the observed decrease in river discharge. Thus, changes in water yield are associated with an increase in evapotranspiration rates in natural vegetation, growth of which has expanded as a consequence of land abandonment in areas where agricultural activities and livestock pressure have decreased. In the lowlands of the basin the decrease in water yield has been exacerbated by increased water consumption for domestic, industrial and agricultural uses. Climate projections for the end of the 21st century suggest a reduced capacity for runoff generation because of increasing temperature and less precipitation. Thus, the maintenance of water supply under conditions of increasing demand presents a challenging issue requiring appropriate coordination amongst politicians and managers.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of climate evolution and land use changes on water yield in the ebro basin

López‐Moreno

Vicente‐Serrano

Morán-Tejéda

et al. 2011

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

191

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“…Moreover, there is a clear lack of studies carried out at higher elevations and very few study sites have an average catchment elevation above 4000 m (de Jong et al, 2005). Most study basins are smaller than 100 km 2 .…”

Section: Limitations Of Ict In Mountainsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Resulting shifts in the frequency, magnitude and length of high-and low flow, including floods and droughts as well as seasonal shifts in overall discharge, are occurring in mountain chains worldwide (IPCC, 2012). Those regions that have experienced a longer growing season and a shift from snow to rain in the last few decades will react with earlier spring runoff and a lower runoff ratio (discharge/precipitation), (Botter et al, 2010;EEA 2009b;de Jong et al, 2009;Hunsaker et al, 2012;Koboltschnig et al, 2009;Lapp et al, 2005;Yilmaz and Imteaz, 2011).…”

Section: Limitations Of Ict In Mountainsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There are several other limitations of ICT closely related to adaptation, such as incompatibilities encountered at the interfaces between qualitative and quantitative information and data systems and problems of integrating "routine" (quantitative) versus "non-routine" (mostly non-quantitative) data (de Jong, 2009a;de Jong and Maurer, 2010). Improvements could be made in developing simplifications and shortcuts for converting qualitative data in an objective way to quantitative data.…”

Section: Availability and Limitations Of Ict Tools For Adaptationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Linking ICT and society in early warning and adaptation to hydrological extremes in mountains

Jong¹

2013

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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The assessment of the societal impact of hydrological extremes is particularly important in mountain regions, since mountains can be considered both as the generators and victims of extreme events. ICT can provide a powerful tool for transmitting hydro-meteorological information to predict, prepare and adapt to such events. However, in remote regions, such as mountains, the poles, deserts and islands, preventive and adaptive measures are often restricted by data availability and lack and/or incoherence of data networks. This paper distinguishes between early warning of floods and droughts, emphasising the latter in particular in mountains and explores the possibilities of enhancing the role of society in data collection, the identification, activation and application of stakeholder knowledge and transferral of data from gauged to ungauged catchments

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“…In recent decades a significant increase in temperature has been detected in most mountain regions around the world, accompanied by a shift towards earlier snowpack melt and declining snow accumulation (Mote 2003;Barnett et al 2005;Hantel and Hirtl-Wielke, 2007;De Jong et al, 2009;Minder, 2010)). This change in snowpack dynamics results from snow sensitivity to temperature increase, causing a decreasing proportion of snowfall relative to precipitation, and an increase in available energy for snow melt (Rood et al 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The vulnerability of Pyrenean ski resorts to climate-induced changes in the snowpack

Pons

López‐Moreno²,

Rosas-Casals

et al. 2015

Climatic Change

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Abstract:Winter tourism is the main source of income and the driving force of local development in many mountain areas. However, in recent years the industry has been identified as being extremely vulnerable to future climate change. Although the Pyrenees has the largest ski area in Europe after the Alps, there are few detailed climate-change vulnerability assessments on the ski resorts based in this region. This paper analyzes the vulnerability of the Pyrenean ski resorts to projected changes in the snowpack under various future climate scenarios. In addition, the study analyzes the sustainability of the snowmaking systems to offset the climate variability of natural snow cover. On average, the study predicts a shorter ski-season length, especially in low-altitude ski resorts in a moderate climate-change scenario and for all ski resorts in a more intensive climatechange scenario. However, a significant regional variability has been identified for the projected impacts at very short geographical distances within the studied area.Moreover, this paper shows that snowmaking cannot completely solve the problem for all ski resorts in the Pyrenees, as the measure can only act as a robust adaptation strategy in the region provided climate change is limited to +2 °C snowmaking.

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Mountain Hydroclimatology and Snow Seasonality—Perspectives on climate impacts, snow seasonality and hydrological change in mountain environments

Cited by 47 publications

References 39 publications

Impact of climate evolution and land use changes on water yield in the ebro basin

Impact of climate evolution and land use changes on water yield in the ebro basin

Linking ICT and society in early warning and adaptation to hydrological extremes in mountains

The vulnerability of Pyrenean ski resorts to climate-induced changes in the snowpack

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