Cargando…

Modelling of climate change impact on flow conditions in the lowland anastomosing river

The progressive degradation of freshwater ecosystems worldwide requires action to be taken for their conservation. Nowadays, protection strategies need to step beyond the traditional approach of managing protected areas as they have to deal with the protection or recovery of natural flow regimes dis...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Marcinkowski, Paweł, Mirosław-Świątek, Dorota
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7319031/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32612881
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.9275
_version_ 1783550977884815360
author Marcinkowski, Paweł
Mirosław-Świątek, Dorota
author_facet Marcinkowski, Paweł
Mirosław-Świątek, Dorota
author_sort Marcinkowski, Paweł
collection PubMed
description The progressive degradation of freshwater ecosystems worldwide requires action to be taken for their conservation. Nowadays, protection strategies need to step beyond the traditional approach of managing protected areas as they have to deal with the protection or recovery of natural flow regimes disrupted by the effects of future climate conditions. Climate change affects the hydrosphere at catchment scale altering hydrological processes which in turn impact hydrodynamics at the river reach scale. Therefore, conservation strategies should consider mathematical models, which allow for an improved understanding of ecosystem functions and their interactions across different spatial and temporal scales. This study focuses on an anastomosing river system in north-eastern Poland, where in recent decades a significant loss of the anabranches has been observed. The objective was to assess the impact of projected climate change on average flow conditions in the anastomosing section of the Narew River. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT software) for the Narew catchment was coupled with the HEC-RAS one-dimensional unsteady flow model. The study looked into projected changes for two future time horizons 2021–2050 and 2071–2100 under the Representative Concentration Pathway 4.5 using an ensemble of nine EURO-CORDEX model scenarios. Results show that low flow conditions in the anastomosing section of the Narew National Park will remain relatively stable in 2021–2050 compared to current conditions and will slightly increase in 2071–2100. Duration of low flows, although projected to decrease on an annual basis, will increase for August–October, when the loss on anastomoses was found to be the most intense. Hydraulic modeling indicated extremely low flow velocities in the anastomosing arm (<0.1 m/s) nowadays and under future projections which is preferable for in-stream vegetation development and their gradual sedimentation and closure.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-7319031
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2020
publisher PeerJ Inc.
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-73190312020-06-30 Modelling of climate change impact on flow conditions in the lowland anastomosing river Marcinkowski, Paweł Mirosław-Świątek, Dorota PeerJ Climate Change Biology The progressive degradation of freshwater ecosystems worldwide requires action to be taken for their conservation. Nowadays, protection strategies need to step beyond the traditional approach of managing protected areas as they have to deal with the protection or recovery of natural flow regimes disrupted by the effects of future climate conditions. Climate change affects the hydrosphere at catchment scale altering hydrological processes which in turn impact hydrodynamics at the river reach scale. Therefore, conservation strategies should consider mathematical models, which allow for an improved understanding of ecosystem functions and their interactions across different spatial and temporal scales. This study focuses on an anastomosing river system in north-eastern Poland, where in recent decades a significant loss of the anabranches has been observed. The objective was to assess the impact of projected climate change on average flow conditions in the anastomosing section of the Narew River. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT software) for the Narew catchment was coupled with the HEC-RAS one-dimensional unsteady flow model. The study looked into projected changes for two future time horizons 2021–2050 and 2071–2100 under the Representative Concentration Pathway 4.5 using an ensemble of nine EURO-CORDEX model scenarios. Results show that low flow conditions in the anastomosing section of the Narew National Park will remain relatively stable in 2021–2050 compared to current conditions and will slightly increase in 2071–2100. Duration of low flows, although projected to decrease on an annual basis, will increase for August–October, when the loss on anastomoses was found to be the most intense. Hydraulic modeling indicated extremely low flow velocities in the anastomosing arm (<0.1 m/s) nowadays and under future projections which is preferable for in-stream vegetation development and their gradual sedimentation and closure. PeerJ Inc. 2020-06-23 /pmc/articles/PMC7319031/ /pubmed/32612881 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.9275 Text en © 2020 Marcinkowski and Mirosław-Świątek https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Climate Change Biology
Marcinkowski, Paweł
Mirosław-Świątek, Dorota
Modelling of climate change impact on flow conditions in the lowland anastomosing river
title Modelling of climate change impact on flow conditions in the lowland anastomosing river
title_full Modelling of climate change impact on flow conditions in the lowland anastomosing river
title_fullStr Modelling of climate change impact on flow conditions in the lowland anastomosing river
title_full_unstemmed Modelling of climate change impact on flow conditions in the lowland anastomosing river
title_short Modelling of climate change impact on flow conditions in the lowland anastomosing river
title_sort modelling of climate change impact on flow conditions in the lowland anastomosing river
topic Climate Change Biology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7319031/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32612881
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.9275
work_keys_str_mv AT marcinkowskipaweł modellingofclimatechangeimpactonflowconditionsinthelowlandanastomosingriver
AT mirosławswiatekdorota modellingofclimatechangeimpactonflowconditionsinthelowlandanastomosingriver