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Relevance and Scale Dependence of Hydrological Changes in Glacierized Catchments: Insights from Historical Data Series in the Eastern Italian Alps
- Source :
- Water, Vol 11, Iss 1, p 89 (2019), Water, Volume 11, Issue 1
- Publication Year :
- 2019
- Publisher :
- MDPI AG, 2019.
-
Abstract
- Glaciers have an important hydrological buffering effect, but their current rapid reduction raises concerns about future water availability and management. This work presents a hydrological sensitivity analysis to different climatic and glacier cover conditions, carried out over four catchments with area between 8 and 1050 km2, and with glacierization between 2% and 70%, in the Italian Alps. The analysis is based on past observations, and exploits a unique dataset of glacier change and hydro-meteorological data. The working approach is aimed at avoiding uncertainties typical of future runoff projections in glacierized catchments. The results highlight a transition from glacial to nival hydrological regime, with the highest impacts in August runoff over smaller catchments. The buffering effect of current glaciers has largely decreased if compared to the Little Ice Age, up to 75% for larger catchments, but it is still important during warm and dry summers like 2003. We confirm a non-linear relationship between glacier contribution in late summer and catchment area/percent glacierization. The peak in runoff attributable to glacier melt, expected in the next 2&ndash<br />3 decades on highly glacierized alpine catchments, has already passed in the study area.
- Subjects :
- lcsh:Hydraulic engineering
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences
alpine watersheds
Geography, Planning and Development
0207 environmental engineering
Climate change
02 engineering and technology
Data series
Aquatic Science
01 natural sciences
Biochemistry
historical data series
Alpine watersheds
Glacier runoff change
Glacio-hydrological modeling
Historical data series
Italian Alps
Water Science and Technology
lcsh:Water supply for domestic and industrial purposes
lcsh:TC1-978
Glacial period
020701 environmental engineering
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
Planning and Development
lcsh:TD201-500
geography
geography.geographical_feature_category
Geography
Glacier
glacier runoff change
Current (stream)
climate change
glacio-hydrological modeling
Environmental science
Catchment area
Physical geography
Scale (map)
Surface runoff
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 20734441
- Volume :
- 11
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Water
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....6d743ac8662cf2fdb45f4aa24c2b0451