The Ebro River Basin (original) (raw)
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Climate Change, Water Resources and Pollution in the Ebro Basin: Towards an Integrated Approach
Abstract The European Water Framework Directive encourages the management of rivers at the basin scale requiring an understanding of the interdependencies between the physical environment and the local hydrology, ecology and climate. The current and future climate of the Spanish Ebro river basin, including its tributary, the Gállego, has been studied extensively within the EU AquaTerra (AT) project along with the hydrology and behaviour of environmental pollutants with respect to climate change. This chapter provides an overview of current research carried out for the Ebro and the Gállego and provides a summary and review of the recent and new AT studies examining climate, water resources and environmental pollutants. AT climate studies suggest that the Ebro will become significantly hotter and drier in the future, especially in summer. For example, regional climate models (RCMs) project a decrease in daily mean precipitation of up to 50.5% in the summer by the 2080s (Bürger et al. Environ Pollut 148:842–854, 2007). Future climate scenarios from an ensemble of RCMs have been used to provide input data to hydrological models of the Ebro and Gállego catchments to simulate the impacts of climate change on the basins. These results suggest that changes in climate will reduce water availability in the area, especially during the summer months when irrigation demands are highest. In addition, AT pollutant studies have revealed that persistent organic pollutants such as DDT are found in high concentrations near industrial sites, and heavy metal, pesticide and nutrient pollution are widespread. Problems of poor water quality in the basin may be exacerbated in periods of low water flow as pollutants will be more concentrated due to a lack of dilution with respect to high flow periods. AT studies have shown that this leads to a bioaccumulation of bio-available brominated flame retardants in fish, with potentially serious health effects. Changing climate patterns may influence degradation, turnover, sorption and transport behaviour of pollutant contamination with unknown effects. The effect of climate change on pollutants has not yet been quantitatively assessed with the same rigour as applied to hydrological assessments, and there remains considerable potential for further integration of climate impact assessment within the pollutant monitoring and modelling communities to improve future projections. These studies have important implications for future integrated basin management strategies in the Ebro. Graphical Abstract
The Science of the total environment, 2018
Transport of hydrophobic pollutants in rivers such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and heavy metals is often facilitated by suspended sediment particles, which are typically mobilized during high discharge events. Suspended sediments thus represent a means of transport for particle related pollutants within river reaches and may represent a suitable proxy for average pollutant concentrations estimation in a river reach or catchment. In this study, multiple high discharge/turbidity events were sampled at high temporal resolution in the Globaqua River Basins Sava (Slovenia, Serbia), Adige (Italy), and Evrotas (Greece) and analysed for persistent organic pollutants such as PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) or PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) and heavy metals. For comparison, river bed sediment samples were analysed as well. Further, results are compared to previous studies in contrasting catchments in Germany, Iran, Spain, and beyond. ...
Hydrological Impacts of Climate Change on the Ebro River Basin
Abstract This work presents hydrological simulations on the Ebro River basin (Spain), using both control (1961–1990) and future (2071–2100) climate scenarios, to investigate the effect of climate change on water resources. Using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool hydrological model, simulations were carried out in four subcatchments representative of typical situations within the basin. Model parameters were identified using sensitivity analysis and long-term calibration procedures, which enabled the historical behaviour of the catchments to be reproduced. Following validation, the parameters were used to simulate the effects of climate change on future streamflows. Bias-corrected daily time series of precipitation and mean temperature from two regional climate models (RCMs), using the same medium-high SRES A2 emissions scenario, were used as drivers of the hydrological simulations during the future scenarios. Important annual and seasonal differences in the projected future precipitation and air temperature fields were observed among the RCMs. However, the two models project an overall increase in the mean annual temperature accompanied by a reduction in the annual precipitation, with the strongest differences with respect to the control period observed during the summer season. When these changes were used to project future streamflows, a general decrease was observed in the streamflows at the outlet of the selected catchments. Changes in streamflows were in general agreement with the projections of daily precipitation and temperature fields, with the largest drop in predicted monthly streamflows for the subcatchments with the lowest aridity index, and seasonal differences that appears to be related to the elevation range of the subcatchments. Graphical Abstract
Impact and mitigation of global change on freshwater-related ecosystem services in Southern Europe
The Science of the total environment, 2018
Global change is severely impacting the biosphere that, through ecosystem services, sustains human well-being. Such impacts are expected to increase unless mitigation management actions are implemented. Despite the call from the scientific and political arenas for their implementation, few studies assess the effectiveness of actions on freshwater-related services. Here, by modeling water provisioning, water purification and erosion control under current and future conditions, we assess future trends of service provision with and without mitigation policies. In particular, two different storylines combine multiple climate, land use/land cover and agricultural management scenarios, and represent a pro-efficiency business as usual (myopic storyline) and a future that considers social and environmental sustainability (sustainable storyline). The mentioned services are modeled for the horizon 2050 and in three South European river basins: Ebro, Adige and Sava, which encompass the wide so...