IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/climat/v147y2018i1d10.1007_s10584-017-2121-y.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Alpine foreland running drier? Sensitivity of a drought vulnerable catchment to changes in climate, land use, and water management

Author

Listed:
  • Clara Hohmann

    (University of Graz
    University of Graz)

  • Gottfried Kirchengast

    (University of Graz
    University of Graz
    University of Graz)

  • Steffen Birk

    (University of Graz
    University of Graz)

Abstract

Southeastern Austria as part of the southeastern Alpine forelands experiences an increase of temperature and a tendency of decreasing precipitation. Especially in summer, the temperature strongly increased by about 0.7 °C per decade since the 1970s. Drought vulnerability under climate change is therefore a key question in this region. Here, we address this question by exploring the hydrological sensitivity of the Raab catchment in Austria (area 987 km2), a typical catchment in these Alpine forelands. Using the process-oriented Water Flow and Balance Simulation Model (WaSiM) over 1982–2011, we focus on low-flow conditions during extended summer (May–September) and analyze the catchment’s runoff sensitivity to climate change, but also land use and water management change. We find that climate change drivers dominate the summertime runoff response (decrease > 40/> 70%), based on moderate and strong climate change cases in the region (temperature + 2/+ 4 K, precipitation − 15/− 30%). Land use changes towards more dry and sealed areas enhance surface runoff and thus may lead to somewhat increased flood peaks. In contrast, water withdrawal for irrigation reduces runoff during low-flow periods in the summer when the irrigation demand is high. Although the impact of these non-climatic drivers on runoff generally is lower than that of the climate change considered, their interactive effects may reinforce the catchment’s tendency of running drier during summer. While more detailed scenario-based assessments are needed to further assess drought risks, this initial study provides clear evidence for the vulnerability of Alpine foreland catchments to increasing summer dryness under climate change.

Suggested Citation

  • Clara Hohmann & Gottfried Kirchengast & Steffen Birk, 2018. "Alpine foreland running drier? Sensitivity of a drought vulnerable catchment to changes in climate, land use, and water management," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 147(1), pages 179-193, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:climat:v:147:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1007_s10584-017-2121-y
    DOI: 10.1007/s10584-017-2121-y
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10584-017-2121-y
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10584-017-2121-y?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Justin Sheffield & Eric F. Wood & Michael L. Roderick, 2012. "Little change in global drought over the past 60 years," Nature, Nature, vol. 491(7424), pages 435-438, November.
    2. Julie Vano & Dennis Lettenmaier, 2014. "A sensitivity-based approach to evaluating future changes in Colorado River discharge," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 122(4), pages 621-634, February.
    3. Helge Bormann, 2011. "Sensitivity analysis of 18 different potential evapotranspiration models to observed climatic change at German climate stations," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 104(3), pages 729-753, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sarah Beganskas & Kyle S. Young & Andrew T. Fisher & Ryan Harmon & Sacha Lozano, 2019. "Runoff Modeling of a Coastal Basin to Assess Variations in Response to Shifting Climate and Land Use: Implications for Managed Recharge," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 33(5), pages 1683-1698, March.
    2. Hasrul Hazman Hasan & Siti Fatin Mohd Razali & Nur Shazwani Muhammad & Asmadi Ahmad, 2022. "Modified Hydrological Drought Risk Assessment Based on Spatial and Temporal Approaches," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-28, May.
    3. Hasrul Hazman Hasan & Siti Fatin Mohd Razali & Ahmad Zafuan Ibrahim Ahmad Zaki & Firdaus Mohamad Hamzah, 2019. "Integrated Hydrological-Hydraulic Model for Flood Simulation in Tropical Urban Catchment," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(23), pages 1-24, November.
    4. Pedro Pérez-Cutillas & Pedro Baños Páez & Isabel Banos-González, 2020. "Variability of Water Balance under Climate Change Scenarios. Implications for Sustainability in the Rhône River Basin," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(16), pages 1-22, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Linghui Guo & Yuanyuan Luo & Yao Li & Tianping Wang & Jiangbo Gao & Hebing Zhang & Youfeng Zou & Shaohong Wu, 2023. "Spatiotemporal Changes and the Prediction of Drought Characteristics in a Major Grain-Producing Area of China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(22), pages 1-19, November.
    2. Kaustubh Salvi & Subimal Ghosh, 2016. "Projections of Extreme Dry and Wet Spells in the 21st Century India Using Stationary and Non-stationary Standardized Precipitation Indices," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 139(3), pages 667-681, December.
    3. Hongli Wang & Yongxiang Zhang & Xuemei Shao, 2021. "A tree-ring-based drought reconstruction from 1466 to 2013 CE for the Aksu area, western China," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 165(1), pages 1-16, March.
    4. Ashenafi Yimam Kassaye & Guangcheng Shao & Xiaojun Wang & Shiqing Wu, 2021. "Quantification of drought severity change in Ethiopia during 1952–2017," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 5096-5121, April.
    5. Pere Quintana-Seguí & Anaïs Barella-Ortiz & Sabela Regueiro-Sanfiz & Gonzalo Miguez-Macho, 2020. "The Utility of Land-Surface Model Simulations to Provide Drought Information in a Water Management Context Using Global and Local Forcing Datasets," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 34(7), pages 2135-2156, May.
    6. Francisco José Del-Toro-Guerrero & Luis Walter Daesslé & Rodrigo Méndez-Alonzo & Thomas Kretzschmar, 2022. "Surface Reflectance–Derived Spectral Indices for Drought Detection: Application to the Guadalupe Valley Basin, Baja California, Mexico," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(6), pages 1-19, May.
    7. Zhang, Yuliang & Wu, Zhiyong & Singh, Vijay P. & Lin, Qingxia & Ning, Shaowei & Zhou, Yuliang & Jin, Juliang & Zhou, Rongxing & Ma, Qiang, 2023. "Agricultural drought characteristics in a typical plain region considering irrigation, crop growth, and water demand impacts," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 282(C).
    8. Sergio M. Vicente-Serrano & Miquel Tomas-Burguera & Santiago Beguería & Fergus Reig & Borja Latorre & Marina Peña-Gallardo & M. Yolanda Luna & Ana Morata & José C. González-Hidalgo, 2017. "A High Resolution Dataset of Drought Indices for Spain," Data, MDPI, vol. 2(3), pages 1-10, June.
    9. Benjamin L. Turner & Hector M. Menendez & Roger Gates & Luis O. Tedeschi & Alberto S. Atzori, 2016. "System Dynamics Modeling for Agricultural and Natural Resource Management Issues: Review of Some Past Cases and Forecasting Future Roles," Resources, MDPI, vol. 5(4), pages 1-24, November.
    10. Lomborg, Bjorn, 2020. "Welfare in the 21st century: Increasing development, reducing inequality, the impact of climate change, and the cost of climate policies," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    11. Xinyu Fu & Mark Svoboda & Zhenghong Tang & Zhijun Dai & Jianjun Wu, 2013. "An overview of US state drought plans: crisis or risk management?," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 69(3), pages 1607-1627, December.
    12. Evan Girvetz & Chris Zganjar, 2014. "Dissecting indices of aridity for assessing the impacts of global climate change," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 126(3), pages 469-483, October.
    13. Sergio M. Vicente‐Serrano & Tim R. McVicar & Diego G. Miralles & Yuting Yang & Miquel Tomas‐Burguera, 2020. "Unraveling the influence of atmospheric evaporative demand on drought and its response to climate change," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 11(2), March.
    14. Zuliqar Ali & Ijaz Hussain & Muhammad Faisal & Hafiza Mamona Nazir & Mitwali Abd-el Moemen & Tajammal Hussain & Sadaf Shamsuddin, 2017. "A Novel Multi-Scalar Drought Index for Monitoring Drought: the Standardized Precipitation Temperature Index," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 31(15), pages 4957-4969, December.
    15. Lei Zou & Jun Xia & Dunxian She, 2018. "Analysis of Impacts of Climate Change and Human Activities on Hydrological Drought: a Case Study in the Wei River Basin, China," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 32(4), pages 1421-1438, March.
    16. Rama, Nandamuri Yamini & Ganguli, Poulomi & Chatterjee, Chandranath, 2019. "Are Detected Trends in Flood Magnitude and Shifts in the Timing of Floods of A Major River Basin in India, Linked To Anthropogenic Stressors?," Earth Arxiv kmcty, Center for Open Science.
    17. U. Surendran & B. Anagha & P. Raja & V. Kumar & K. Rajan & M. Jayakumar, 2019. "Analysis of Drought from Humid, Semi-Arid and Arid Regions of India Using DrinC Model with Different Drought Indices," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 33(4), pages 1521-1540, March.
    18. Anthony S. Kiem & Fiona Johnson & Seth Westra & Albert Dijk & Jason P. Evans & Alison O’Donnell & Alexandra Rouillard & Cameron Barr & Jonathan Tyler & Mark Thyer & Doerte Jakob & Fitsum Woldemeskel &, 2016. "Natural hazards in Australia: droughts," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 139(1), pages 37-54, November.
    19. Xiang, Keyu & Li, Yi & Horton, Robert & Feng, Hao, 2020. "Similarity and difference of potential evapotranspiration and reference crop evapotranspiration – a review," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 232(C).
    20. Ruiwen Zhang & Chengyi Zhao & Xiaofei Ma & Karthikeyan Brindha & Qifei Han & Chaofan Li & Xiaoning Zhao, 2019. "Projected Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Drought under Global Warming in Central Asia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(16), pages 1-19, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:climat:v:147:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1007_s10584-017-2121-y. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.