Spatiotemporal Changes in Headwater Flow Contributions to Major Rivers of Germany under Changing Climate

Headwater systems are a major source of water, sediments, and nutrients (including nitrogen and carbon di-oxide) for downstream aquatic, riparian, and inland ecosystems. As precipitation changes are expected to exhibit considerable spatial variability in the future, we hypothesize that headwater contribution to major rivers will also change significantly. Quantifying these changes is essential for developing effective adaptation and mitigation strategies against climate change. However, the lack of hydrologic projections at high resolutions over large domains have hindered attempts to quantify climate change impacts on headwater systems.

Here, we overcome this challenge by developing an ensemble of hydrologic projections at an unprecedented resolution (1km) for Germany. These high resolution projections are developed within the framework of the Helmholtz Climate Initiative (https://www.helmholtz.de/en/current-topics/the-initiative/climate-research/). Our modeling chain consists of the following four components:

Climate Modeling: We statistically downscale and bias-adjust climate change scenarios from three representative concentration pathway (RCP) scenarios derived from the EURO-CORDEX ensemble - 2.6, 4.5, and 8.5 to a horizontal resolution of 1km over Germany (i.e, a total of 75 ensemble members). The EURO-CORDEX ensemble is generated by dynamically downscaling CMIP-5 general circulation models (GCM) using regional climate models (RCMs). Hydrologic Modeling: To account for model structure uncertainty, the climate model projections are used as forcings for three spatially distributed hydrologic models - a) the mesocale Hydrologic model (mHM), b) Noah-MP, and c) HTESSEL. The outputs that will be generated in the study are soil moisture, evapotranspiration, snow water equivalent, and runoff. Streamflow Routing: To minimize uncertainty from river routing schemes, we use the multiscale routing model (mRM v1.0) to route runoff from all the three models. River Temperature Modeling: A novel river temperature model is used to quantify the changes in river temperature due to anthropogenic warming.

The 225-member ensemble streamflow outputs (75 climate model members and 3 hydrologic models) are used to quantify the changes in the contribution of headwater watersheds to all the major rivers in Germany. Finally, we analyze changes in soil moisture, snow melt, and river temperature and their implications for headwater contributions. Previously, a high-resolution (5km) multi-model ensemble for climate change projections has been created within the EDgE project^1,2,3,4. The newly created projections in this project will be compared against those created in the EDgE project.  The ensemble used in this project will profit from the higher resolution of the regional climate models that provide a more detailed land orography.

References

[1] Marx, A. et al. (2018). Climate change alters low flows in Europe under global warming of 1.5, 2, and 3 C. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 22(2), 1017-1032.

[2] Samaniego, L. et al. (2019). Hydrological forecasts and projections for improved decision-making in the water sector in Europe. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

[3] Samaniego, L. and Thober, S., et al. (2018). Anthropogenic warming exacerbates European soil moisture droughts. Nature Climate Change, 8(5), 421.

[4] Thober, S. et al. (2018). Multi-model ensemble projections of European river floods and high flows at 1.5, 2, and 3 degrees global warming. Environmental Research Letters, 13(1), 014003.