- 1Hydro Consulting, AFRY Austria GmbH, Vienna, Austria (harald.kling@afry.com)
- 2Wegener Center for Climate and Global Change, University of Graz, Austria (albert.osso-castillon@uni-graz.at)
The Upper Danube Basin upstream of Vienna, which can be regarded as the water tower of the Danube region, has a long history of human influence on river flow, from land use changes to hydropower development and today’s anthropogenic climate change. At the same time, the civilizing activities in the basin also have included the collection of scientific data, leading to remarkably long and reliable observational hydro-meteorological time series by Swiss, German and Austrian hydro-meteorological services and authorities.
Based on these observational data sets, this contribution presents exceptionally long hydrological simulations for the Upper Danube Basin, spanning from the time of the industrial revolution (1870) to the record-breaking hot years of the last decade (until 2023). An existing, well-established model for the Danube basin (Kling et al., 2012, Stanzel and Kling, 2018) was re-applied, but with new input data sets and new parameterization. This long simulation time-series (1870-2023) allows a rigorous testing of the hydrological model’s capabilities to adequately simulate non-stationary conditions, by evaluating different periods with specific characteristics and the representation of slow changes and long-term trends. The simulations facilitate the analysis of complex changes in the water balance and the impact on river discharge, both in the past and in the future.
In the framework of the climate change impact research project STREAM (Storylines of Danube Streamflow), the hydrological model of the Upper Danube will be applied to simulate future Danube discharge conditions based on the latest CMIP6 climate model projections.
References:
Kling H, Fuchs M, Paulin M. 2012. Runoff conditions in the upper Danube basin under an ensemble of climate change scenarios. Journal of Hydrology Vol. 424-425, p. 264-277
Stanzel P, Kling H. 2018. From ENSEMBLES to CORDEX: Evolving climate change projections for Upper Danube River flow. Journal of Hydrology Vol. 563, p. 987-999
How to cite: Kling, H., Stanzel, P., Lerche, F., and Ossó, A.: Hydrological simulation of Danube River discharge over the last 150 years and future projections with CMIP6 until 2100, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-18525, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-18525, 2025.
