Abstract
Growing drought hazard and water demand for agriculture, ecosystem conservation, and tourism in the Hungarian Drava river floodplain call for novel approaches to maintain wetland habitats and enhance agricultural productivity. Floodplain rehabilitation should be viewed as a complex landscape ecological issue which, beyond water management goals to relieve water deficit, ensures a high level of provision for a broad range of ecosystem services. This paper explores the hydrological feasibility of alternative water management, i.e., the restoration of natural reservoirs (abandoned paleochannels) to mitigate water shortage problems. To predict the efficiency of the project, an integrated surface water (Wetspass-M) and groundwater model (MODFLOW-NWT) was developed and calibrated with an eight-year data series. Different management scenarios for two natural reservoirs were simulated with filling rates ranging from 0.5 m3 s−1 to 1.5 m3 s−1. In both instances, a natural reservoir with a feeding rate of 1 m3 s−1 was found to be the best scenario. In this case 14 days of filling are required to reach the possible maximum reservoir stage of +2 m. The first meter rise increases the saturation of soil pores and the second creates an open surface water body. Two filling periods per year, each lasting for around 180 days, are required. The simulated water balance shows that reservoir–groundwater interactions are mainly governed by the inflow into and outflow from the reservoir. Such an integrated management scheme is applicable for floodplain rehabilitation in other regions with similar hydromorphological conditions and hazards, too.
Highlights
Water availability is of primary importance for landscape functions
The selected subareas were simulated as natural reservoirs with filling and discharge conditions based on +2 m vertical water depth increasing theoretically with different stream discharges of 0.5, 0.75, 1, and 1.5 m3 s−1 . (The excess water hazard on agricultural land excludes water level rise above +2 m.) Based on measurements of stream discharge, to obtain feeding with stream discharge larger than 1 m3 d−1, constructing a dam is required
The forested environs of the reservoir, reduce evaporation. This model is the first attempt to investigate whether water management through establishing a natural reservoir can be a major contribution to floodplain rehabilitation
Summary
Water availability is of primary importance for landscape functions. Over the last centuries, half of European wetlands and more than 95% of riverine floodplains were converted to agricultural and urban lands [1]. Fenske et al [53] used the Reservoir Package to simulate the lake This approach requires previous knowledge of lakebed seepage to assess the lake stages [54]. Yihdego and Becht [56] applied a 3D flow model with the high-K technique to simulate lake/groundwater interaction in Naivasha, Kenya. The advantages and disadvantages of three approaches for simulating lake–groundwater interactions (namely, fixed lake stages, high-K nodes, and LAK3 package) were compared by Hunt [59]. The experience gathered from the MODFLOW lake packages is utilized in the modeling of water balance for the reservoir planned in the Drava floodplain. Newton-Raphson formulation for MODFLOW-2005 to different scenarios model of reservoir recharge is aa precondition to establishing a new water governance in (MODFLOW-NWT) with ModelMuse as a graphical interface. Sustainable ecotourism and related development would ensure a safe livelihood for
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