Hydroclimatic changes and drivers in the Sava River Catchment and comparison with Swedish catchments |
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Authors: | Lea Levi Fernando Jaramillo Roko Andri?evi? Georgia Destouni |
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Institution: | .Department of Sustainable Development, Environmental Science and Engineering (SEED), Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Teknikringen 76, 100 44 Stockholm, Sweden ;.Department of Physical Geography, Stockholm University, 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden ;.Bolin Centre for Climate Research, Stockholm University, 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden ;.Department of Applied Hydraulics, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Architecture and Geodesy, University of Split, 21 000 Split, Croatia |
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Abstract: | In this study, we investigate long-term hydroclimatic changes and their possible relation to regional changes in climate, land-use and water-use over the twentieth century in the transboundary Sava River Catchment (SRC) in South Eastern Europe. In a hydropower dominated part of the SRC, unlike in an unregulated part, we find increase in average annual evapotranspiration and decrease in temporal runoff variability, which are not readily explainable by observed concurrent climate change in temperature and precipitation and may be more related to landscape-internal change drivers. Among the latter investigated here, results indicate hydropower developments as most closely related to the found hydroclimatic shifts, consistent with previous such indications in studies of Swedish hydropower catchments. Overall, the present results have quantitatively framed the recent history and present state of hydroclimate in the SRC, of relevance for water resources in several countries and for a majority of their populations. This provides a useful basis for further assessment of possible future hydroclimatic changes, under different scenarios of climate change and land/water-use developments in the region.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13280-015-0641-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. |
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Keywords: | Hydroclimatic change Evapotranspiration Runoff variability Land-use Hydropower Sava River |
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