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Rye Island is a unique natural formation, which lies between the main flow of the Danube River and the Little Danube River and is the largest river island in Europe. It is located in the southwest of Slovakia and with its mild to slightly warm climate is one of the most fertile agricultural areas in Slovakia. The whole Rye Island is also our greatest reservoir of quality waters used for drinking purposes, where groundwaters of Rye Island are permanently supplied with water from the Danube River. It means that as water levels in the Danube River were unstable before the construction of the Gabčíkovo Water Project, also the groundwater level faced large fluctuations. Changes occurred after putting the Gabčíkovo Water Project into service, with a decrease in groundwater levels. Thereby, the conditions for agriculture have improved and drying of surrounding protected floodplain forests has stopped. Through the present contribution we decided to analyse the impact of Gabčíkovo on soil water regime in the area of Rye Island, and evaluate the course of groundwater level, precipitation and soil water storage over time. For the representative area we chose a forest ecosystem of Král’ovská Lúka and evaluated the period 1999 to 2009.

Climate change is one of the largest threats to the modern world. It is primarily experienced via changes and extreme weather events, including air temperature changes, the uneven distribution of precipitation and an increase in the alteration of torrential short-term precipitation and longer non-precipitation periods. However climate change is not only a change in the weather; it also has a much larger impact on an ecosystem. As a result of expected climate change, a lack of either surface water or groundwater could occur within wetlands; thus, the existence of wetlands and their flora and fauna could be threatened. This submitted work analyses the impact of climate change on the wetland ecosystems of Poiplie, which is situated in the south of Slovakia in the Ipeľ river basin. The area is an important wetland biotope with rare plant and animal species, which mainly live in open water areas, marshes, wet meadows and alluvial forests. To evaluate any climate change, the CGCM 3.1 model, two emission scenarios, the A2 emission scenario (pessimistic) and the B1 emission scenario (optimistic), were used within the regionalization. For simulating the soil water storage, which is one of the components of a soil water regime, the GLOBAL mathematical model was used.