Abstract
A future variation of precipitation characteristics, due to climate change, will affect the ability of rainfall to precipitate soil loss. In this paper, the monthly and annual values of rainfall erosivity (R) in Greece are calculated, for the historical period 1971–2000, using precipitation records that suffer from a significant volume of missing values. In order to overcome the data limitations, an intermediate step is applied using the calculation of monthly erosivity density, which is more robust to the presence of missing values. Spatial Quantile Regression Forests, a data driven algorithm that imitates kriging without the need of strict statistical assumptions, was utilized and validated, in order to create maps of R and its uncertainty using error propagation. The monthly average precipitation for the historical period 1971–2000 estimated by five (5) Global Circulation Models-Regional Climatic Models were validated against observed values and the one with the best performance was used to estimate projected changes of R in Greece for the future time period 2011–2100 and two different greenhouse gases concentration scenarios. The main findings of this study are: (a) the mean annual R in Greece is 1039 MJ·mm/ha/h/y, with a range between 405.1 and 3160.2 MJ·mm/ha/h/y. The highest values are calculated at the mountain range of Pindos and the lowest at central Greece; (b) the monthly R maps adhere to the spatiotemporal characteristics of precipitation depth and intensities over the country; (c) the projected R values, as an average over Greece, follow the projected changes of precipitation of climatic models, but not in a spatially homogenous way.
Highlights
Rainfall erosivity concerns the ability of rainfall to precipitate soil loss [1], as it supplies energy to the mechanical processes of soil erosion
Decertification has been identified as one of the most serious issues facing Mediterranean European countries, including Greece [2], and a possible increase in future rainfall, due to climate change, will aggravate this process, as soil erosion increases at a greater rate [3]
The monthly conversion factors cm that were computed for Greece using the five-min-time-step timeseries have a mean value 1.22, close to the one calculated for Europe [59], but had different seasonality with their maximum values in the period from May to October and minimum during March (Table 2)
Summary
Rainfall erosivity concerns the ability of rainfall to precipitate soil loss [1], as it supplies energy to the mechanical processes of soil erosion. Decertification has been identified as one of the most serious issues facing Mediterranean European countries, including Greece [2], and a possible increase in future rainfall, due to climate change, will aggravate this process, as soil erosion increases at a greater rate [3]. A decrease in future rainfall and a possible decrease of biomass production may lead to higher erosion rates [4]. Higher erosion rates in conjunction with unsustainable land management and increasing human pressure can lead to soil degradation [5], and a disrupted ecological balance, a decreasing agricultural production and income [6] and even the reduction of effectiveness of adaptation options [7]. In order to predict these soil erosion future changes it is necessary
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