Potential impacts of climate change and regional anthropogenic activities in Central European mesoscale catchments

Abstract

The Soil and Water Integrated Model (SWIM) was used to assess potential climate and land-use change impacts in the Central European catchments of Schwarze Elster, Spree and Lusatian Neisse which are heavily influenced by opencast lignite mining. To account for potential climate change, scenarios of two statistical regional climate models, STAR and WettReg, were used. Regional anthropogenic change was considered in terms of increasing cultivation of energy crops (oilseed rape, silage maize, sunflower and sorghum) and decreasing mining activities (decreasing groundwater depression cone). In the climate scenarios, decreased natural discharge, by up to 60% in the long-term average, was simulated. In simulations with climate scenarios and oilseed rape, this effect is halved; the other energy crops have a small additional impact on discharge. The decreasing groundwater depression cone slightly compensates for climate change impacts. Overall, potential impacts of regional anthropogenic activities are secondary to those of climate change.Editor Z.W. Kundzewicz; Guest editor M. White