Journal articles on the topic 'Climate Induced on the Hydrology of Mediterranean Basins'

Abstract. This work addresses the impact of climate change on the hydrology of a catchment in the Mediterranean, a region that is highly susceptible to variations in rainfall and other components of the water budget. The assessment is based on a comparison of responses obtained from five hydrologic models implemented for the Rio Mannu catchment in southern Sardinia (Italy). The examined models – CATchment HYdrology (CATHY), Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT), TOPographic Kinematic APproximation and Integration (TOPKAPI), TIN-based Real time Integrated Basin Simulator (tRIBS), and WAter balance SImulation Model (WASIM) – are all distributed hydrologic models but differ greatly in their representation of terrain features and physical processes and in their numerical complexity. After calibration and validation, the models were forced with bias-corrected, downscaled outputs of four combinations of global and regional climate models in a reference (1971–2000) and future (2041–2070) period under a single emission scenario. Climate forcing variations and the structure of the hydrologic models influence the different components of the catchment response. Three water availability response variables – discharge, soil water content, and actual evapotranspiration – are analyzed. Simulation results from all five hydrologic models show for the future period decreasing mean annual streamflow and soil water content at 1 m depth. Actual evapotranspiration in the future will diminish according to four of the five models due to drier soil conditions. Despite their significant differences, the five hydrologic models responded similarly to the reduced precipitation and increased temperatures predicted by the climate models, and lend strong support to a future scenario of increased water shortages for this region of the Mediterranean basin. The multimodel framework adopted for this study allows estimation of the agreement between the five hydrologic models and between the four climate models. Pairwise comparison of the climate and hydrologic models is shown for the reference and future periods using a recently proposed metric that scales the Pearson correlation coefficient with a factor that accounts for systematic differences between datasets. The results from this analysis reflect the key structural differences between the hydrologic models, such as a representation of both vertical and lateral subsurface flow (CATHY, TOPKAPI, and tRIBS) and a detailed treatment of vegetation processes (SWAT and WASIM).

Abstract. This contribution brings to a close a special issue of Hydrology and Earth System Sciences concerning the assessment of nitrogen dynamics in catchments across Europe within a semi-distributed Integrated Nitrogen model for multiple source assessment in Catchments (INCA). The wide range of issues involved in relation to hydrology and within-catchment processes, scale (from small catchments to major river basins), climate (from sub-arctic to Mediterranean regimes) and pollution (atmospheric, agricultural and urban sources) is outlined. Consideration is then given to how well the model has performed and future research requirements are outlined. Keywords: nitrogen, nitrate, ammonium, organic nitrogen, catchments, streams, rivers, river basins

Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission is altering the global hydrological cycle due to change in rainfall pattern and rising temperature which is responsible for alteration in the physical characteristics of river basin, melting of ice, drought, flood, extreme weather events and alteration in groundwater recharge. In India, water demand for domestic, industrial and agriculture purposes have already increased many folds which are also influencing the water resource system. In addition, climate change has induced the surface temperature of the Indian subcontinent by 0.48 ºC in just last century. However, Ganges–Brahmaputra–Meghna (GBM) river basins have great importance for their exceptional hydro-geological settings and deltaic floodplain wetland ecosystems which support 700 million people in Asia. The climatic variability like alterations in precipitation and temperature over GBM river basins has been observed which signifies the GBM as one of the most vulnerable areas in the world under the potential impact of climate change. Consequently, alteration in river discharge, higher runoff generation, low groundwater recharge and melting of glaciers over GBM river basin could be observed in near future. The consequence of these changes due to climate change over GBM basin may create serious water problem for Indian sub-continents. This paper reviews the literature on the historical climate variations and how climate change affects the hydrological characteristics of different river basins.

AbstractEarth’s crust deforms in various time and spatial resolutions. To estimate them, geodetic observations are widely employed and compared to geophysical models. In this research, we focus on the Earth’s crust deformations resulting from hydrology mass changes, as observed by GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) gravity mission and modeled using WGHM (WaterGAP Global Hydrological Model) and GLDAS (Global Land Data Assimilation System), hydrological models. We use the newest release of GRACE Level-2 products, i. e. RL06, provided by the CSR (Center for Space Research, Austin) analysis center in the form of a mascon solution. The analysis is performed for the European area, divided into 29 river basins. For each basin, the average signal is estimated. Then, annual amplitudes and trends are calculated. We found that the eastern part of Europe is characterized by the largest annual amplitudes of hydrology-induced Earth’s crust deformations, which decrease with decreasing distance to the Atlantic coast. GLDAS largely overestimates annual amplitudes in comparison to GRACE and WGHM. Hydrology models underestimate trends, which are observed by GRACE. For the basin-related average signals, we also estimate the non-linear variations over time using the Singular Spectrum Analysis (SSA). For the river basins situated on the southern borderline of Europe and Asia, large inter-annual deformations between 2004 and 2009 reaching a few millimeters are found; they are related to high precipitation and unexpectedly large drying. They were observed by GRACE but mismodelled in the GLDAS and WGHM models. Few smaller inter-annual deformations were also observed by GRACE between 2002-2017 for central and eastern European river basins, but these have been also well-covered by the WGHM and GLDAS hydrological models.

Climate change has influenced the discharge regime of rivers during the past decades. This study aims to reveal climate-induced interannual trends of average annual discharge and discharge maxima in a Mediterranean river from 1981 to 2017. To this aim, the Pinios river basin was selected as the study area because it is one of the most productive agricultural areas of Greece. Due to a lack of sufficient measurements, simulated daily discharges for three upstream sub-basins were used. The discharge trend analysis was based on a multi-faceted approach using Mann-Kendall tests, Quantile-Kendall plots, and generalized additive models (GAMs) for fitting non-linear interannual trends. The methodological approach proposed can be applied anywhere to investigate climate change effects. The results indicated that the average annual discharge in the three upstream sub-basins decreased in the 1980s, reaching a minimum in the early 1990s, and then increased from the middle 1990s to 2017, reaching approximately the discharge levels of the early 1980s. A more in-depth analysis unraveled that the discharge maxima in September were characterized by statistically significant increasing interannual trends for two of the three sub-basins. These two sub-basins are anthropogenically low affected, thus highlighting the clear impact of climate change that may have critical socioeconomic implications in the Pinios basin.

The uncertainty that arises from future environmental and climatic challenges requires new approaches towards urban water management in Mediterranean cities. In this work, an urban water cycle (UWC) strategy based on the best management practices (BMPs) of water-sensitive urban design (WSUD) is proposed for the transition of a coastal city in the south of Portugal into a water-sensitive city (WSC), in line with the Municipal Strategy for Climate Change Adaptation of Loulé (EMAAC of Loulé). The city’s watershed was identified using the ArcMap Hydrology toolset with geospatial data provided by Loulé’s Municipal Council Operational Unit for Adaptation to Climate Change and Circular Economy (UOACEC). A broad characterisation of the study area was conducted, identifying existing resources to further develop a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis. The Hydrology toolset outputs, precipitation events records, and survey results were used to identify flood-prone areas. The opportunities and threats identified were further used to develop the transition strategy, which is focused on critical areas identified and supported by BMPs, including source control, attenuation, treatment and infiltration measures, permeable pavements, rainwater harvesting systems, and bioretention basins. The approach is designed to increase the city’s resilience to climate extremes, as well as community engagement towards UWC management.

SUMMARYClimate change and land use change are two forces influencing the hydrology of watersheds and their ability to provide ecosystem services, such as clean and well-regulated streamflow and control of soil erosion and sediment yield. The Soil Water Assessment Tool, SWAT, a distributed, watershed-scale hydrological model was used with 18 scenarios of rainfall, temperature and infiltration capacity of land surface to investigate the spatial distribution of watershed services over the 3587 km2 Nyando basin in Western Kenya and how it is affected by these two forces. The total annual water yield varied over the 50 sub-basins from 35 to 600 mm while the annual sediment yield ranged from 0 to 104 tons ha−1. Temperature change had a relatively minor effect on streamflow and sediment yield compared to change in rainfall and land surface condition. Improvements in land surface condition that result in higher infiltration are an effective adaptation strategy to moderate the effects of climate change on supply of watershed services. Spatial heterogeneity in response to climate and land use change is large, and hence it is necessary to understand it if interventions to modify hydrology or adapt to climate change are to be effective.

To determine how climate-induced changes in hydrology and water level may affect the trophic state (productivity) of stratified lakes, two relatively pristine dimictic temperate lakes in Wisconsin, USA, were examined. Both are closed-basin lakes that experience changes in water level and degradation in water quality during periods of high water. One, a seepage lake with no inlets or outlets, has a small drainage basin and hydrology dominated by precipitation and groundwater exchange causing small changes in water and phosphorus (P) loading, which resulted in small changes in water level, P concentrations, and productivity. The other, a terminal lake with inlets but no outlets, has a large drainage basin and hydrology dominated by runoff causing large changes in water and P loading, which resulted in large changes in water level, P concentrations, and productivity. Eutrophication models accurately predicted the effects of changes in hydrology, P loading, and water level on their trophic state. If climate changes, larger changes in hydrology and water levels than previously observed could occur. If this causes increased water and P loading, stratified (dimictic and monomictic) lakes are expected to experience higher water levels and become more eutrophic, especially those with large developed drainage basins.

Abstract. Central Asia is in large parts dominated by low precipitation and, consequentially, by low water availability. Therefore, changes of natural water resources induced by climate change are of high interest. The aim of this study is to analyse the potential impact of climate change on Central Asian water resources until the end of the 21st century and to point out the main affected regions. Thus, simulations with the large-scale hydrology model WaterGAP3 for the baseline and scenario periods were performed with outputs from three General Circulation Models (GCMs: ECHAM5, IPSL-CM4, and CNRM-CM3) and two IPCC-SRES emission scenarios (A2 and B1). The results show that mean modelled annual water availability increases for all scenarios and GCMs while CNRM-CM3 induces the wettest water situation for the 2085s and ECHAM5 the lowest water availability. Furthermore, robust trends to wetter or dryer conditions could be found for many basins. A seasonal shift of mean modelled water availability could be derived for ECHAM5 which does not show a second peak during summer. The application of daily input data showed no improvement of modelled monthly river discharges for most Central Asian basins compared to monthly input data.

Abstract. Recently, the provision of food and water resources of two of the world's largest river basins, the Murray and the Yangtze, has been significantly altered through widespread landscape modification. Long-term sedimentary archives, dating back for some centuries from wetlands of these river basins, reveal that rapid, basin-wide development has reduced the resilience of biological communities, resulting in considerable decline in ecosystem services, including water quality. Large-scale human disturbance to river systems, due to river regulation during the mid-20th century, has transformed the hydrology of rivers and wetlands, causing widespread modification of aquatic biological communities. Changes to cladoceran zooplankton (water fleas) were used to assess the historical hydrology and ecology of three Murray and Yangtze river wetlands over the past century. Subfossil assemblages of cladocerans retrieved from sediment cores (94, 45, and 65 cm) of three wetlands: Kings Billabong (Murray), Zhangdu, and Liangzi lakes (Yangtze), showed strong responses to hydrological changes in the river after the mid-20th century. In particular, river regulation caused by construction of dams and weirs together with river channel modifications, has led to significant hydrological alterations. These hydrological disturbances were either (1) a prolonged inundation of wetlands or (2) reduced river flow, both of which caused variability in wetland depth. Inevitably, these phenomena have subsequently transformed the natural wetland habitats, leading to a switch in cladoceran assemblages to species preferring poor water quality, and in some cases to eutrophication. The quantitative and qualitative decline of wetland water conditions is indicative of reduced ecosystem services, and requires effective restoration measures for both river basins which have been impacted by recent socioeconomic development and climate change.

Abstract. Recently, the provision of food and water resources of two of the world's large river basins, the Murray and the Yangtze, has been significantly altered through widespread landscape modification. Long-term sedimentary archives, dating back to past centuries, from wetlands of these river basins reveal that rapid, basin-wide development has reduced resilience of biological communities, resulting in considerable decline in ecosystem services, including water quality. In particular, large-scale human disturbance to river systems, due to river regulation during the mid-20th century, has transformed the hydrology of rivers and wetlands, causing widespread disturbance to aquatic biological communities. Historical changes of cladoceran zooplankton (water fleas) were used to assess the hydrology and ecology of three Murray and Yangtze River wetlands over the past century. Subfossil assemblages of cladocerans retrieved from sediment cores (94, 45 and 65 cm) of three wetlands: Kings Billabong (Murray), Zhangdu and Liangzi Lakes (Yangtze) strongly responded to hydrological changes of the river after the mid-20th century. River regulation caused by construction of dams and weirs, and river channel modifications has led to hydrological alterations. The hydrological disturbances were either: (1) a prolonged inundation of wetlands, or (2) reduced river flow, which caused variability in wetland depth. These phenomena subsequently transformed the natural wetland habitats, leading to a switch in cladoceran assemblages preferring poor water quality and eutrophication. An adaptive water resource management framework for both of these river basins has been proposed to restore or optimize the conditions of wetland ecosystems impacted by 20th century human disturbance and climate change.

Climate and other human-induced changes will increase water scarcity in world areas such as in the Mediterranean. Adaptation principles need to be urgently incorporated into water management and stakeholder engagement needs to be strengthened at all steps of the management cycle. This study aimed to analyse and compare stakeholder-preferred water management options (WMOs) to face climate change related challenges and to foster adaptation in four Mediterranean river basins. The challenges and WMOs of the four river basins identified by stakeholders were analysed examining to what extent the WMOs tackled the identified challenges. The impact of the WMOs resulting from a participatory modelling method was included in a comparative analysis of the stakeholders’ WMOs preferences. The results indicate the participatory approach that was applied allowed local priorities and real-world challenges to be defined with adequate detail as well as the definition of tailored responses. The participatory impact analysis provided an integrated view of the river basin as an interrelated system. The participatory evaluation of the WMOs was able to consider a wide range of elements and was able reflect the combined preferences of the stakeholders. Moreover, it allowed groups of basin actors with highly diverse profiles and concerns to further promote sets of these WMOs as input into decision making processes.

Climate change induced sea-level rise (SLR) is on its increase globally. Regionally the lowlands of China, Vietnam, Bangladesh, and islands of the Malaysian, Indonesian and Philippine archipelagos are among the world’s most threatened regions. Sea-level rise has major impacts on the ecosystems and society. It threatens coastal populations, economic activities, and fragile ecosystems as mangroves, coastal salt-marches and wetlands. This paper provides a summary of the current state of knowledge of sea level-rise and its effects on both human and natural ecosystems. The focus is on coastal urban areas and low lying deltas in South-East Asia and Vietnam, as one of the most threatened areas in the world. About 3 mm per year reflects the growing consensus on the average SLR worldwide. The trend speeds up during recent decades. The figures are subject to local, temporal and methodological variation. In Vietnam the average values of 3.3 mm per year during the 1993-2014 period are above the worldwide average. Although a basic conceptual understanding exists that the increasing global frequency of the strongest tropical cyclones is related with the increasing temperature and SLR, this relationship is insufficiently understood. Moreover the precise, complex environmental, economic, social, and health impacts are currently unclear. SLR, storms and changing precipitation patterns increase flood risks, in particular in urban areas. Part of the current scientific debate is on how urban agglomeration can be made more resilient to flood risks. Where originally mainly technical interventions dominated this discussion, it becomes increasingly clear that proactive special planning, flood defense, flood risk mitigation, flood preparation, and flood recovery are important, but costly instruments. Next to the main focus on SLR and its effects on resilience, the paper reviews main SLR associated impacts: Floods and inundation, salinization, shoreline change, and effects on mangroves and wetlands. The hazards of SLR related floods increase fastest in urban areas. This is related with both the increasing surface major cities are expected to occupy during the decades to come and the increasing coastal population. In particular Asia and its megacities in the southern part of the continent are increasingly at risk. The discussion points to complexity, inter-disciplinarity, and the related uncertainty, as core characteristics. An integrated combination of mitigation, adaptation and resilience measures is currently considered as the most indicated way to resist SLR today and in the near future.References Aerts J.C.J.H., Hassan A., Savenije H.H.G., Khan M.F., 2000. Using GIS tools and rapid assessment techniques for determining salt intrusion: Stream a river basin management instrument. 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Abstract. In order to evaluate the uncertainty associated with the impact model in climate change studies, a CO2 responsive version of the land surface model ISBA (ISBA-A-gs) is compared with its standard version in a climate impact assessment study. The study is performed over the French Mediterranean basin using the Safran-Isba-Modcou chain. A downscaled A2 regional climate scenario is used to force both versions of ISBA, and the results of the two land surface models are compared for the present climate and for that at the end of the century. Reasonable agreement is found between models and with discharge observations. However, ISBA-A-gs has a lower mean evapotranspiration and a higher discharge than ISBA-Standard. Results for the impact of climate change are coherent on a yearly basis for evapotranspiration, total runoff, and discharge. However, the two versions of ISBA present contrasting seasonal variations. ISBA-A-gs develops a different vegetation cycle. The growth of the vegetation begins earlier and reaches a slightly lower maximum than in the present climate. This maximum is followed by a rapid decrease in summertime. In consequence, the springtime evapotranspiration is significantly increased when compared to ISBA-Standard, while the autumn evapotranspiration is lower. On average, discharge changes are more significant at the regional scale with ISBA-A-gs.

The Mekong River Basin (MRB) is one of the significant river basins in the world. For political and economic reasons, it has remained mostly in its natural condition. However, with population increases and rapid industrial growth in the Mekong region, the river has recently become a hotbed of hydropower development projects. This study evaluated these changing hydrological conditions, primarily driven by climate as well as land use and land cover change between 1992 and 2015 and into the future. A 3% increase in croplands and a 1–2% decrease in grasslands, shrublands, and forests was evident in the basin. Similarly, an increase in temperature of 1–6 °C and in precipitation of 15% was projected for 2015–2099. These natural and climate-induced changes were incorporated into two hydrological models to evaluate impacts on water budget components, particularly streamflow. Wet season flows increased by up to 10%; no significant change in dry season flows under natural conditions was evident. Anomaly in streamflows due to climate change was present in the Chiang Saen and Luang Prabang, and the remaining flow stations showed up to a 5% increase. A coefficient of variation <1 suggested no major difference in flows between the pre- and post-development of hydropower projects. The results suggested an increasing trend in streamflow without the effect of dams, while the inclusion of a few major dams resulted in decreased river streamflow of 6% to 15% possibly due to irrigation diversions and climate change. However, these estimates fall within the range of uncertainties in natural climate variability and hydrological parameter estimations. This study offers insights into the relationship between biophysical and anthropogenic factors and highlights that management of the Mekong River is critical to optimally manage increased wet season flows and decreased dry season flows and handle irrigation diversions to meet the demand for food and energy production.

Abstract. Intracontinental endorheic basins are key elements of source-to-sink systems as they preserve sediments eroded from the surrounding catchments. Drainage reorganization in such a basin in response to changing boundary conditions has strong implications on the sediment routing system and on landscape evolution. The Ebro and Duero basins represent two foreland basins, which developed in response to the growth of surrounding compressional orogens, the Pyrenees and the Cantabrian mountains to the north, the Iberian Ranges to the south, and the Catalan Coastal Range to the east. They were once connected as endorheic basins in the early Oligocene. By the end of the Miocene, new post-orogenic conditions led to the current setting in which the Ebro and Duero basins are flowing in opposite directions, towards the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Although these two hydrographic basins recorded a similar history, they are characterized by very different morphologic features. The Ebro basin is highly excavated, whereas relicts of the endorheic stage are very well preserved in the Duero basin. The contrasting morphological preservation of the endorheic stage represents an ideal natural laboratory to study the drivers (internal and/or external) of post-orogenic drainage divide mobility, drainage network, and landscape evolution. To that aim, we use field and map observations and we apply the χ analysis of river profiles along the divide between the Ebro and Duero drainage basins. We show here that the contrasting excavation of the Ebro and Duero basins drives a reorganization of their drainage network through a series of captures, which resulted in the southwestward migration of their main drainage divide. Fluvial captures have a strong impact on drainage areas, fluxes, and their respective incision capacity. We conclude that drainage reorganization driven by the capture of the Duero basin rivers by the Ebro drainage system explains the first-order preservation of endorheic stage remnants in the Duero basin, due to drainage area loss, independently from tectonics and climate.

Abstract. Determining the spatiotemporal variability in the annual streamflow volume plays a relevant role in hydrology with regard to improving and implementing sustainable and resilient policies and practices of water resource management. This study investigates annual streamflow volume trends in a newly assembled, consolidated, and validated data set of daily mean river flow records from more than 3000 stations which cover near-natural basins in more than 40 countries across Europe. Although the data set contains streamflow time series from 1900 to 2013 in some stations, the statistical analyses were carried out by including observations from 1950 to 2013 in order to have a consistent and reliable data set over the continent. Trends were detected by calculating the slope of the Theil–Sen line over the annual anomalies of streamflow volume. The results show that annual streamflow volume trends have emerged at European scale, with a marked negative tendency in Mediterranean regions, with about -1×103 m3/(km2 yr−2), and a generally positive trend in northern ones, with about 0.5×103 m3/(km−2 yr−2). The annual streamflow volume trend patterns appear to be in agreement with the continental-scale meteorological observations in response to climate change drivers. In the Mediterranean area, the decline of annual streamflow volumes started in 1965, and since the early 1980s, volumes have consistently been lower than the 1950–2013 average. The spatiotemporal annual streamflow volume patterns observed in this work can help to contextualize short-term trends and regional studies already available in the scientific literature, as well as to provide a valid benchmark for further accurate quantitative analysis of annual streamflow volumes.

Abstract This article applies formal detection and attribution techniques to investigate the nature of observed shifts in the timing of streamflow in the western United States. Previous studies have shown that the snow hydrology of the western United States has changed in the second half of the twentieth century. Such changes manifest themselves in the form of more rain and less snow, in reductions in the snow water contents, and in earlier snowmelt and associated advances in streamflow “center” timing (the day in the “water-year” on average when half the water-year flow at a point has passed). However, with one exception over a more limited domain, no other study has attempted to formally attribute these changes to anthropogenic increases of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Using the observations together with a set of global climate model simulations and a hydrologic model (applied to three major hydrological regions of the western United States—the California region, the upper Colorado River basin, and the Columbia River basin), it is found that the observed trends toward earlier “center” timing of snowmelt-driven streamflows in the western United States since 1950 are detectably different from natural variability (significant at the p &lt; 0.05 level). Furthermore, the nonnatural parts of these changes can be attributed confidently to climate changes induced by anthropogenic greenhouse gases, aerosols, ozone, and land use. The signal from the Columbia dominates the analysis, and it is the only basin that showed a detectable signal when the analysis was performed on individual basins. It should be noted that although climate change is an important signal, other climatic processes have also contributed to the hydrologic variability of large basins in the western United States.

AbstractRift-basins are the shallow effects of lithosphere-scale extensional processes often producing polyphase faulting. Their sedimentary evolution depends on the mutual interplay between tectonics, climate, and eustasy. Estimating the role of each factor is generally a challenging issue. This paper is focused on the tectono-sedimentary evolution of the Neogene Siena-Radicofani Basin, a polyphase structural depression located in the inner Northern Apennines. Since Miocene, this basin developed after prolonged extensional tectonics, first as a bowl-shaped structural depression, later reorganized into a half-graben structure due to the activation of high-angle normal faults in the Zanclean. At that time the basin contained coeval continental and marine settings controlled by the normal faulting that caused the development of local coarse-grained depositional systems. These were investigated to: (i) discriminate between the influences of tectonics and climate on sedimentation patterns, and (ii) provide detailed time constraints on fault activity. The analysed successions were deposited in an interval between 5.08 and 4.52 Ma, when a climate-induced highstand phase occurred throughout the Mediterranean. However, evidence of local relative sea-level drops is registered in the sedimentary record, often associated with increased accommodation space and sediment supply. Such base-level fluctuations are not connected to climate changes, suggesting that the faults generally control sedimentation along the basin margins.

Abstract. This paper proposes a Multidisciplinary Decision Support System (MDSS) as an approach to manage rainfall-induced shallow landslides of the flow type (flowslides) in pyroclastic deposits. We stress the need to combine information from the fields of meteorology, geology, hydrology, geotechnics and economics to support the agencies engaged in land monitoring and management. The MDSS consists of a "simulation chain" to link rainfall to effects in terms of infiltration, slope stability and vulnerability. This "simulation chain" was developed at the Euro-Mediterranean Centre for Climate Change (CMCC) (meteorological aspects), at the Geotechnical Laboratory of the Second University of Naples (hydrological and geotechnical aspects) and at the Department of Economics of the University of Naples "Federico II" (economic aspects). The results obtained from the application of this simulation chain in the Cervinara area during eleven years of research allowed in-depth analysis of the mechanisms underlying a flowslide in pyroclastic soil.

Erosion is the dominant behavior along worldwide coastlines. Although many factors can locally influence processes governing coastline evolution some common factors can be identified. Thus, the sediment budget has largely been modified in most of developed coasts, with river sand supplies being drastically reduced due to human influence in drainage basins. On the other hand, coastal segmentation due to infrastructures alters sediment transport patterns and induces and/or accelerates coastline erosion. Within this general context, artificial nourishment has been one of the most used coastal engineering measure by mimicking the role played by river sediment supplies to compensate local erosion problems. Since nourishment is not acting on the origin of the problems, erosive processes will continue to control shoreline evolution. Thus, the evolution of beach fills will be controlled by the sediment budget within the coastal cell where works have been done and, this will determine required sediment volumes to maintain the future shoreline. Within this context, we present data on long-term (25 years) shoreline evolution and nourishment operations in the Tarragona coast (Spain, NW Mediterranean). The main aim of the work is to analyze the coastal stability and the effects of beach fills along the coast taking into account the type of the coastal cell where works have been implemented. Once this has been evaluated, the sustainability of an adaptation strategy based on the use of this protection measure to cope with climate change induced scenarios is also assessed to propose a long- term sediment management plan.

Abstract. Socio-economic costs of drought are progressively increasing worldwide due to undergoing alterations of hydro-meteorological regimes induced by climate change. Although drought management is largely studied in the literature, traditional drought indexes often fail at detecting critical events in highly regulated systems, where natural water availability is conditioned by the operation of water infrastructures such as dams, diversions, and pumping wells. Here, ad hoc index formulations are usually adopted based on empirical combinations of several, supposed-to-be significant, hydro-meteorological variables. These customized formulations, however, while effective in the design basin, can hardly be generalized and transferred to different contexts. In this study, we contribute FRIDA (FRamework for Index-based Drought Analysis), a novel framework for the automatic design of basin-customized drought indexes. In contrast to ad hoc empirical approaches, FRIDA is fully automated, generalizable, and portable across different basins. FRIDA builds an index representing a surrogate of the drought conditions of the basin, computed by combining all the relevant available information about the water circulating in the system identified by means of a feature extraction algorithm. We used the Wrapper for Quasi-Equally Informative Subset Selection (W-QEISS), which features a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm to find Pareto-efficient subsets of variables by maximizing the wrapper accuracy, minimizing the number of selected variables, and optimizing relevance and redundancy of the subset. The preferred variable subset is selected among the efficient solutions and used to formulate the final index according to alternative model structures. We apply FRIDA to the case study of the Jucar river basin (Spain), a drought-prone and highly regulated Mediterranean water resource system, where an advanced drought management plan relying on the formulation of an ad hoc “state index” is used for triggering drought management measures. The state index was constructed empirically with a trial-and-error process begun in the 1980s and finalized in 2007, guided by the experts from the Confederación Hidrográfica del Júcar (CHJ). Our results show that the automated variable selection outcomes align with CHJ's 25-year-long empirical refinement. In addition, the resultant FRIDA index outperforms the official State Index in terms of accuracy in reproducing the target variable and cardinality of the selected inputs set.

Rainfall erosivity causes considerable environmental damage by driving soil loss. However, the long-term evolution of erosive forcing (over centennial to millennial time-scales) remains essentially unknown. Using a rainfall erosivity model (REMARB), this study simulates the variability of rainfall erosivity in Arno River Basin (ARB), Italy, a Mediterranean fluvial basin, for the period 1000–2019 CE resulting in the world’s longest time-series of erosivity. The annual estimates show a noticeable and increasing variability of rainfall erosivity during the Little Ice Age (∼1250–1849), especially after c. 1490, until the end of 18th century. During this cold period, erosive forcing reached ∼1600 MJ mm hm−2 h−1 yr−1 once every four years, and ∼3000 MJ mm hm−2 h−1 yr−1 once every 20 years. The extremes of rainfall erosivity (the 98th percentile) followed a similar increasing trend, with an acceleration of the hydrological hazard (erosivity per unit of rainfall) during the 20th century. The comparison of REMARB output with the sediment yield of the basin (1951–2010) confirmed the model’s ability to predict geomorphological effects in the ARB. Thus, our methodology could be applied to simulate erosivity in environmentally similar basins. A relationship has been identified between the Atlantic Multidecadal Variation and erosivity patterns, suggesting a role of North Atlantic circulation dynamics on the hydrology of central Italy’s fluvial basins.

Under a persistent warming climate and increasing human activities, permafrost in the Source Area of the Yellow River (SAYR) has been degrading regionally, resulting in many eco-environmental problems. This paper reviews the changes in air temperature and precipitation over the past 60 years and presents the distribution and degradation of alpine permafrost in the SAYR. The review is focused on the permafrost degradation–induced changes in hydrology, wetlands, thermokarst lakes, ponds, and vegetation. Mean annual air temperatures have been rising at an average rate of 0.4°C/10a over the past 60 years, while precipitation has increased only slightly (16 mm/10a). Borehole temperature monitoring at the depth of 15 m shows the permafrost warming rates of 0.01–0.21°C/10a in the Headwater Aera of the Yellow River. As a result of permafrost thaw, the amount of surface waters has declined while groundwater storage has increased. Due to permafrost degradation, the supra-permafrost water table lowers gradually, resulting in a reduction in areal extents of wetlands and lakes in the SAYR. We further renamed the concept of the burial depth of the ecologically-safe supra-permafrost water table, the minimum depth of the groundwater table for sustaining the normal growth of alpine grassland vegetation, for the SAYR to describe the relationship between the lowering permafrost table and succeeding alpine vegetation. Furthermore, we recommended more studies focusing on snow cover and carbon stock and emissions related to permafrost degradation under a warming climate. We also advised to timely establish the long-term monitoring networks for the rapidly changing mountain cryosphere, alpine ecology, alpine hydrology, eco-hydrology, cryo-hydrogeology, and carbon fluxes. Moreover, process-based models should be developed and improved to better simulate and predict the responses of alpine ecosystem changes to the interacting cryospheric and other environmental variables and their ecological and ecohydrological impacts in the SAYR and downstream Yellow River basins. This study can help better manage the ecological and hydrological environments in the Upper Yellow River that are sensitive to changes in the alpine climate and cryosphere.

Degradation currently affects 25 % of the land on Earth and 40 % of the agricultural land on Earth. Environmental effects of soil degradation are widespread, including increased soil losses, deterioration of water quality, decline of biodiversity and degradation of ecological resources and associated values, especially where actual land use is disrespectful (natural use in circumstances where land is in conflict with the environment. Changes in temperature, wind velocity, and precipitation patterns can affect the production of plant biomass, land use, land cover, soil moisture, infiltration rate, runoff and crop management, and eventually land degradation. In recent decades, powerful partnerships have been seen between global climate change and land loss processes. In order to reliably define or forecast the effect of climate change on the loss of land, models of climate change and land use models should be combined with hydrology. Until the first seventies land degradation and geological process weren't thought of a serious issue in most Mediterranean regions. Traditional agricultural systems were believed to be able to keep those processes under control. So low priority was appointed to research programmes and comes on eroding and conservation, preference being given to the impact of farm machinery on soil structure and compaction beside the role of organic matter within the soil. To regulate the destruction of soil, it is therefore important to have limited and global strategies and regulations. Land use and land cover changes influence carbon fluxes and GHGs emissions that directly alter atmospherical composition and radioactive forcing properties. Land degradation aggravates greenhouse gas-induced global climate change through the discharge of CO2 from cleared and dead vegetation and thru the reduction of the carbon sequestration potential of degraded land. The present analysis furnishes effects of climate amendment on land degradation.

This study analyzes the long-term changes in the rainfall and surface hydrology of the upper and middle sub-basins of Mahanadi, an inter-state river basin in eastern India that experiences climate-induced hydrological extremes, and draws implications for the sustainability of irrigation and drinking water supplies. The likely impacts of rainfall changes on surface flow were also modeled. A Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) model was set up (beginning June 2009 and ending May 2050) to analyze the future water balance of the basin for the expected changes in socio-economic conditions. The model was also run for future scenarios that considered different water management interventions, and hydrological consequences of climate variability and change. The model results showed that there would be a water deficit, about 2,182 million cubic meters (MCM) by 2050 (20% of the demand) even under the business-as-usual scenario. The gap is expected to widen to 5,005 MCM (25% of the demand) under a high growth scenario. Further, the water demand management interventions in agriculture would be able to reduce the overall demand for water in the basin to some extent, while it would also reduce the supplies slightly due to a reduction in return flows occurring as a result of irrigation efficiency improvement. The water deficit under this scenario will reduce to about 2,773 MCM in 2050. Under the predicted changes in climate, the water deficit is expected to reduce further (will be 1,684–2,373 MCM in 2050) due to an increase in supplies owing to an increase in the catchment yields resulting from higher rainfall. While there will be a significant amount of outflow from the two sub-basins in all the scenarios in most future years (ranging from 25,286 MCM to 28,697 MCM in 2050), during drought years, the water deficit in the upper basin areas will increase slightly, but with a significant reduction in the outflows to the lower sub-basin areas by 2046–47 (will be about 11,311 MCM). These results indicate that there is a need for building more water storage/diversion infrastructure to detain floodwaters during wet years that can provide buffer storage for the dry years.

Tropical river basins have experienced dramatically increased hydropower development over the last 20 years. These alterations have the potential to cause changes in hydrologic and ecologic systems. One heavily impacted system is the Upper Paraguay River Basin, which feeds the Pantanal wetland. The Pantanal is a Ramsar Heritage site and is one of the world's largest freshwater wetlands. Over the past 20 years, the number of hydropower facilities in the Upper Paraguay River Basin has more than doubled. This paper uses the Indicators of Hydrologic Alteration (IHA) method to assess the impact of 24 of these dams on the hydrologic regime over 20 years (10 years before and 10 years after dam installation) and proposes a method to disentangle the effects of dams from other drivers of hydrologic change using undammed “control” rivers. While most of these dams are small, run-of-the-river systems, each dam significantly altered at least one of the 33 hydrologic indicators assessed. Across all studied dams, 88 of the 256 calculated indicators changed significantly, causing changes of 5–40%, compared to undammed reaches. These changes were most common in indicators that quantify the frequency and duration of high and low pulses, along with those for the rate and frequency of hydrologic changes. Importantly, the flow regime in several undammed reaches also showed significant alterations, likely due to climate and land-use changes, supporting the need for measurements in representative control systems when attributing causes to observed change. Basin-wide hydrologic changes (in both dammed and undammed rivers) have the potential to fundamentally alter the hydrology, sediment patterns, and ecosystem of the Pantanal wetland. The proposed refinement of the IHA methods reveals crucial differences between dam-induced alteration and those assigned to other drivers of change; these need to be better understood for more efficient management of current hydropower plants or the implementation of future dams.