» Research » Hydrological Modelling of Water Resources Changes Caused by Climate Variability and by Land-use Changes

Hydrological Modelling of Water Resources Changes Caused by Climate Variability and by Land-use Changes

Main research domains

  • Two main kinds of runoff changes, i.e. the effects of changed land use and climate warming, appear simultaneously and approaches for the detection should combine both statistical and deterministic methods and simulations. The following items represent roughly the procedures which are applied:
  • Mathematical modelling of rainfall-runoff process in the round-year cycle, i.e. including snow accumulation and snowmelt process
  • Evaluation of main components of water balances in experimental basins, in medium sized basins with natural conditions and in the basins with the regime affected by land-use change; both measurements and simulations are used
  • Simulations of runoff components for the assessment of water storages in diverse areas

Most important results

  • The simulations in which different deterministic models of rainfall-runoff process have been used demonstrate that envisaged and/or occurring runoff changes would have serious impact for water resources management:
  • Applied scenarios of assumed climatic warming for several basins provided the estimates of possible runoff changes due to increased air-temperature in lowlands and in hilly regions in this country. Seasonal shift in annual cycle of water storages is well apparent from obtained simulations. The comparisons with similar simulations at regional scale which is envisaged in an European project will hopefully support the reliability of results.
  • Asynchronous regime of deficits of soil moisture and groundwater storages is the typical situation during the drought periods while winter precipitations play decisive role in the replenishment of these water storages.
  • The approaches applied for appraisals of relationships between potential and actual evapotranspiration appear as the efficient tool for improved water balances; still it is desirable to search more precise procedures for assessment of actual evapotranspiration in the context with deficits of soil moisture.