Abstract
Abstract. Future hydrological behavior in a changing world is typically predicted based on models that are calibrated on past observations, disregarding that hydrological systems and, therefore, model parameters may change as well. In reality, hydrological systems experience almost continuous change over a wide spectrum of temporal and spatial scales. In particular, there is growing evidence that vegetation adapts to changing climatic conditions by adjusting its root zone storage capacity, which is the key parameter of any terrestrial hydrological system. In addition, other species may become dominant, both under natural and anthropogenic influence. In this study, we test the sensitivity of hydrological model predictions to changes in vegetation parameters that reflect ecosystem adaptation to climate and potential land use changes. We propose a top-down approach, which directly uses projected climate data to estimate how vegetation adapts its root zone storage capacity at the catchment scale in response to changes in the magnitude and seasonality of hydro-climatic variables. Additionally, long-term water balance characteristics of different dominant ecosystems are used to predict the hydrological behavior of potential future land use change in a space-for-time exchange. We hypothesize that changes in the predicted hydrological response as a result of 2 K global warming are more pronounced when explicitly considering changes in the subsurface system properties induced by vegetation adaptation to changing environmental conditions. We test our hypothesis in the Meuse basin in four scenarios designed to predict the hydrological response to 2 K global warming in comparison to current-day conditions, using a process-based hydrological model with (a) a stationary system, i.e., no assumed changes in the root zone storage capacity of vegetation and historical land use, (b) an adapted root zone storage capacity in response to a changing climate but with historical land use and (c, d) an adapted root zone storage capacity considering two hypothetical changes in land use. We found that the larger root zone storage capacities (+34 %) in response to a more pronounced climatic seasonality with warmer summers under 2 K global warming result in strong seasonal changes in the hydrological response. More specifically, streamflow and groundwater storage are up to −15 % and −10 % lower in autumn, respectively, due to an up to +14 % higher summer evaporation in the non-stationary scenarios compared to the stationary benchmark scenario. By integrating a time-dynamic representation of changing vegetation properties in hydrological models, we make a potential step towards more reliable hydrological predictions under change.
Highlights
Hydrological models are required to provide robust shortterm hydrological forecasts and long-term predictions of the impact of natural and human-induced change on the hydrological response
Of −6 % between the scenarios with ecosystem adaption and the stationary scenario 2 KA, expressed as constant model parameters (Fig. 8d). These results suggest that the hydrological response in the 2 K climate of the stationary scenario 2 KA is substantially different from the responses of the three scenarios, 2 KB, 2 KC and 2 KD, which consider a change in the root zone storage capacity to reflect ecosystem adaptation in response to climate change
In this study in the Meuse basin, we introduce a method to estimate future changes in vegetation model parameters, and we evaluate the sensitivity of hydrological model predictions to these changes in vegetation parameters as a result of ecosystem adaptation in response to climate and land use changes
Summary
Hydrological models are required to provide robust shortterm hydrological forecasts and long-term predictions of the impact of natural and human-induced change on the hydrological response. For longer-term predictions, it is, problematic to assume an unchanged system within a changing world. This raises a question on the robustness of hydrological predictions, especially in the context of climate change (Coron et al, 2012; Stephens et al, 2019). Merz et al (2011) clearly show the nonstationarity of hydrological model parameters when calibrating 273 Austrian catchments in subsequent 5 years periods between 1976 and 2006. Being the core parameter of any hydrological system, Merz et al (2011) report almost a doubling of the root zone storage capacity, and this gradual increase is assumed to be related to changing climatic conditions, such as increased evaporation and drier conditions in the more recent years. The observed trends in model parameters are likely to reflect transient catchment conditions over the historical period
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