Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
10
Modelling Catchment-Scale
Responses to Climate Change
Richard A. Skeffington, Andrew J. Wade, Paul G. Whitehead,
Dan Butterfield, Øyvind Kaste, Hans Estrup Andersen,
Katri Rankinen and Gaël Grenouillet
Introduction
The focus of the Euro-limpacs project was on responses of aquatic ecosystems
(rivers, lakes and wetlands) to climate change, but these responses cannot be fully
understood or predicted without considering the connections to other earth
systems. Rivers, lakes and wetlands are connected to each other and to other
water bodies such as groundwater and estuarine and coastal waters. Most of the
water in these aquatic systems has passed through the terrestrial environment at
some stage. A catchment-scale approach that considers these different
environments is thus essential for predicting how European aquatic ecosystems
might respond to climate change.
Typically, measurements of the aquatic and terrestrial environments and
experimental manipulations are done in small (<10 km 2 ) research catchments, in
the laboratory or in small in situ tanks which represent the larger system to be
studied. Management decisions are, however, typically made at much larger
scales (>1000 km 2 ), as in the EU Water Framework Directive, in which the River
Basins are all large catchments. Furthermore, projections of future climates made
by the models of atmospheric and oceanic circulation (General Circulation
Models, GCMs) are produced at a coarse scale greater in size than many
catchments. Models can help fill the gaps between the mismatch of scales between
scientific measurement, management and climate projections. The complexity of
the interactions between all these aquatic and terrestrial systems also necessitated
a modelling approach: individual experiments and manipulations alone cannot
consider this complexity or integrate the different processes.
Modelling catchment responses to climate change is a very demanding
undertaking, requiring a number of tasks that are themselves very challenging.
Firstly, in order to make predictions of the effects of climate change, it is necessary
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