PIK Biennial Report 2000-2001 - Potsdam Institute for Climate ...

RAGTIME
Regional Assessment of Global Change Impacts Through Integrated Modelling in
European River Basins
Project speaker: Alfred Becker
PIK project members: Werner Lahmer, Valentina
Krysanova, Beate Klöcking.
RAGTIME covered a variety of projects for the regional
modelling of global change impacts. Some of the topics
were finished in 2001, others are being continued within
the new BMBF-funded project "Integrated Analysis of
Global Change Impacts on the Environment and the
Society in the Elbe River Basin" (GLOWA-ELBE) and
the "Brandenburg Simulator of Environmental and Socioeconomic
Transformations in the context of Global
Change" (BEST, cf TOPIK 5, page 46).
RAGTIME Deliverables
Results from RAGTIME research were primarily provided
within externally funded projects, in particularly
"Impacts of landuse on the water and nutrient balance in
the Elbe river basin" (Elbe Ecology, BMBF) and "Water
and material retention in the Elbe river lowland" (WaStor,
BMBF).
Fig. 1: German part of the Elbe basin including its natural structure
and the sub-basins in the Saale and Havel basins studied in
detail.
Methods and program systems (ArcEGMO, SWIM)
have been developed and applied to calculate aerial distribution
patterns of water balance components, including
three runoff components and associated nutrient
flows in dependence on climate and land-use characteris-
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tics, and changes in these. Figure 1 gives an overview of
major natural regions of the Elbe basin and on the subbasins
studied in detail. The results of both projects will
be published in separate books.
Fig. 2: Absolute changes of percolation calculated for the State of
Brandenburg in the period 1961-1998 (in mm/year).
Two studies were performed in collaboration with the
Environmental Protection Agency Brandenburg, which
provide basic input for water management activities in
the State of Brandenburg. In addition to the spatially distributed
modelling of water balance components, trend
analyses of percolation have been performed, which
indicate considerable changes already under the current
climate. The absolute changes of percolation in the
period 1961-1998 given in Figure 2 show reductions in
about 75% of the total area. Impacts of climate change
on the water balance were also studied in Brandenburg
and some other regions. Some of the results are summarized
within the project KLIMOSTAT, funded by the
German Foundation for the Environment (DBU).
Perspectives
The European Water Framework Directive aims at a
general improvement of water quality in European river
basins. As a contribution to this directive, two research
projects funded by BMBF started in 2001, one in the
Unstrut and the other in the Havel basin. Both projects
are closely linked to GLOWA-ELBE and also form an
integral part of BEST.