scholarly journals Estimation of future groundwater recharge using climatic analogues and Hydrus-1D

2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1389-1410 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Leterme ◽  
D. Mallants ◽  
D. Jacques

Abstract. The impact of climate change on groundwater recharge is simulated using climatic analogue stations, i.e. stations presently under climatic conditions corresponding to a given climate state. The study was conducted in the context of a safety assessment of a future near-surface disposal facility for low and intermediate level short-lived radioactive waste in Belgium; this includes estimating groundwater recharge for the next millennia. Groundwater recharge was simulated using the Richard's based soil water balance model Hydrus-1D and meteorological time series from analogue stations. Water balance calculations showed that transition from a temperate oceanic to a warmer subtropical climate without rainfall seasonality is expected to yield a decrease in groundwater recharge (−12% for the chosen representative analogue station of Gijon, Northern Spain). Based on a time series of 24 yr of daily climate data, the long-term average annual recharge decreased from 314 to 276 mm, although total rainfall was higher (947 mm) in the warmer climate compared to the current temperate climate (899 mm). This is due to a higher soil evaporation (233 mm versus 206 mm) and higher plant transpiration (350 versus 285 mm) under the warmer climate.

2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (8) ◽  
pp. 2485-2497 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Leterme ◽  
D. Mallants ◽  
D. Jacques

Abstract. The sensitivity of groundwater recharge to different climate conditions was simulated using the approach of climatic analogue stations, i.e. stations presently experiencing climatic conditions corresponding to a possible future climate state. The study was conducted in the context of a safety assessment of a future near-surface disposal facility for low and intermediate level short-lived radioactive waste in Belgium; this includes estimation of groundwater recharge for the next millennia. Groundwater recharge was simulated using the Richards based soil water balance model HYDRUS-1D and meteorological time series from analogue stations. This study used four analogue stations for a warmer subtropical climate with changes of average annual precipitation and potential evapotranspiration from −42% to +5% and from +8% to +82%, respectively, compared to the present-day climate. Resulting water balance calculations yielded a change in groundwater recharge ranging from a decrease of 72% to an increase of 3% for the four different analogue stations. The Gijon analogue station (Northern Spain), considered as the most representative for the near future climate state in the study area, shows an increase of 3% of groundwater recharge for a 5% increase of annual precipitation. Calculations for a colder (tundra) climate showed a change in groundwater recharge ranging from a decrease of 97% to an increase of 32% for four different analogue stations, with an annual precipitation change from −69% to −14% compared to the present-day climate.


2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 170176 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saskia L. Noorduijn ◽  
Masaki Hayashi ◽  
Getachew A. Mohammed ◽  
Aaron A. Mohammed

2021 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
pp. e56026
Author(s):  
Gabriela Leite Neves ◽  
Jorim Sousa das Virgens Filho ◽  
Maysa de Lima Leite ◽  
Frederico Fabio Mauad

Water is an essential natural resource that is being impacted by climate change. Thus, knowledge of future water availability conditions around the globe becomes necessary. Based on that, this study aimed to simulate future climate scenarios and evaluate the impact on water balance in southern Brazil. Daily data of rainfall and air temperature (maximum and minimum) were used. The meteorological data were collected in 28 locations over 30 years (1980-2009). For the data simulation, we used the climate data stochastic generator PGECLIMA_R. It was considered two scenarios of the fifth report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and a scenario with the historical data trend. The water balance estimates were performed for the current data and the simulated data, through the methodology of Thornthwaite and Mather (1955). The moisture indexes were spatialized by the kriging method. These indexes were chosen as the parameters to represent the water conditions in different situations. The region assessed presented a high variability in water availability among locations; however, it did not present high water deficiency values, even with climate change. Overall, it was observed a reduction of moisture index in most sites and in all scenarios assessed, especially in the northern region when compared to the other regions. The second scenario of the IPCC (the worst situation) promoting higher reductions and dry conditions for the 2099 year. The impacts of climate change on water availability, identified in this study, can affect the general society, therefore, they must be considered in the planning and management of water resources, especially in the regional context


2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 7469-7516 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. T. Pham ◽  
W. J. Vanhaute ◽  
S. Vandenberghe ◽  
B. De Baets ◽  
N. E. C. Verhoest

Abstract. Of all natural disasters, the economic and environmental consequences of droughts are among the highest because of their longevity and widespread spatial extent. Because of their extreme behaviour, studying droughts generally requires long time series of historical climate data. Rainfall is a very important variable for calculating drought statistics, for quantifying historical droughts or for assessing the impact on other hydrological (e.g. water stage in rivers) or agricultural (e.g. irrigation requirements) variables. Unfortunately, time series of historical observations are often too short for such assessments. To circumvent this, one may rely on the synthetic rainfall time series from stochastic point process rainfall models, such as Bartlett–Lewis models. The present study investigates whether drought statistics are preserved when simulating rainfall with Bartlett–Lewis models. Therefore, a 105 yr 10 min rainfall time series obtained at Uccle, Belgium is used as test case. First, drought events were identified on the basis of the Effective Drought Index (EDI), and each event was characterized by two variables, i.e. drought duration (D) and drought severity (S). As both parameters are interdependent, a multivariate distribution function, which makes use of a copula, was fitted. Based on the copula, four types of drought return periods are calculated for observed as well as simulated droughts and are used to evaluate the ability of the rainfall models to simulate drought events with the appropriate characteristics. Overall, all Bartlett–Lewis type of models studied fail in preserving extreme drought statistics, which is attributed to the model structure and to the model stationarity caused by maintaining the same parameter set during the whole simulation period.


2018 ◽  
pp. 40-50
Author(s):  
Andile B. Maqhuzu ◽  
Kunio Yoshikawa ◽  
Fumitake Takahashi

Landfilling remains the predominant component in the waste management hierarchy of most developing nations. The adoption of emerging waste management technologies and the use of recycling or composting is still in its infancy. Among several inadequacies of current waste management practices in Zimbabwe is the absence of sanitary disposal of municipal solid waste (MSW) in landfills. As a result, the leachate generation rate and leachate characteristics are not routinely monitored. Such information is essential when assessing the impact of leachate on ground and surface water or a facility to which the leachate can be conveyed. Indiscriminate disposal of MSW at unsanitary dumpsites poses a double threat as the discharge of hazardous leachate to potable water sources and emissionsof toxic odours leads to further environmental degradation. Poor waste management practices are compounded by a lack of financial resources and technical capabilities. The financial incapacitation of local authorities is reflected in the fact that there are no reliable statistics on MSW generation and disposal. This lack of comprehensive data has hampered the quantification of MSW and resultant leachate. Therefore, the objectives of this study are twofold. First, we seek to predict the annual quantity of landfilled MSW, and secondly to quantify the leachate flow from Zimbabwe’s landfills. Both were achieved through the use of probability models and a stochastic water balance method supported by 10,000 Monte Carlo iterations. The calculated 90%confidence interval indicates that 13-16 million tonsof MSW havebeen landfilled, with about 41-128 million m3of leachate released since 1980. This is equivalent to a mean of 414,212tons a-1of landfilled MSW and 2.2 millionm3a-1of leachate generated, respectively.


2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 961-975 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gebrerufael Hailu Kahsay ◽  
Tesfamichael Gebreyohannes ◽  
Mewcha Amha Gebremedhin ◽  
Aster Gebrekirstos ◽  
Emiru Birhane ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
John King ◽  
Gareth Marshall ◽  
Steve Colwell ◽  
Clare Allen-Sader ◽  
Tony Phillips

<p> </p><p>Global atmospheric reanalyses are frequently used to drive ocean-ice models but few data are available to assess the quality of these products in the Antarctic sea ice zone. We utilise measurements from three drifting buoys that were deployed on sea ice in the southern Weddell Sea in the austral summer of 2016 to validate the representation of near-surface atmospheric conditions in the ERA-Interim and ERA5 reanalyses produced by the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). The buoys carried sensors to measure atmospheric pressure, air temperature and humidity, wind speed and direction, and downwelling shortwave and longwave radiation. One buoy remained in coastal fast ice for most of 2016 while the other two drifted northward through the austral winter and exited the pack ice during the following austral summer. Comparison of buoy measurements with reanalysis data indicates that both reanalyses represent the surface pressure field in this region accurately. Reanalysis temperatures are, however, biased warm by around 2 °C in both products, with the largest biases seen at the lowest temperatures. We suggest that this bias is a result of the simplified representation of sea ice in the reanalyses, in particular the lack of an insulating snow layer on top of the ice. We use a simple surface energy balance model to investigate the impact of the reanalysis biases on sea ice thermodynamics.</p>


2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (6) ◽  
pp. 3167-3182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Güntner ◽  
Marvin Reich ◽  
Michal Mikolaj ◽  
Benjamin Creutzfeldt ◽  
Stephan Schroeder ◽  
...  

Abstract. In spite of the fundamental role of the landscape water balance for the Earth's water and energy cycles, monitoring the water balance and its components beyond the point scale is notoriously difficult due to the multitude of flow and storage processes and their spatial heterogeneity. Here, we present the first field deployment of an iGrav superconducting gravimeter (SG) in a minimized enclosure for long-term integrative monitoring of water storage changes. Results of the field SG on a grassland site under wet–temperate climate conditions were compared to data provided by a nearby SG located in the controlled environment of an observatory building. The field system proves to provide gravity time series that are similarly precise as those of the observatory SG. At the same time, the field SG is more sensitive to hydrological variations than the observatory SG. We demonstrate that the gravity variations observed by the field setup are almost independent of the depth below the terrain surface where water storage changes occur (contrary to SGs in buildings), and thus the field SG system directly observes the total water storage change, i.e., the water balance, in its surroundings in an integrative way. We provide a framework to single out the water balance components actual evapotranspiration and lateral subsurface discharge from the gravity time series on annual to daily timescales. With about 99 and 85 % of the gravity signal due to local water storage changes originating within a radius of 4000 and 200 m around the instrument, respectively, this setup paves the road towards gravimetry as a continuous hydrological field-monitoring technique at the landscape scale.


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