Selbst wenn die Folgen des Klimawandels in Deutschland geringer ausfallen sollten als in anderen Ländern, werden sich Bevölkerung und Wirtschaft doch umstellen müssen. Die Unternehmen denken bereits heute darüber nach, was auf sie zukommen könnte.
Im Rahmen des Klimawandels werden Veränderungen im Abflussverhalten von Fließgewässern erwartet, die zu einer Zunahme von sommertrockenen Bächen führen können. Für diese im Sommer austrocknenden Bäche gibt es aktuell kein biologisches Bewertungsverfahren, um den ökologischen Zustand mittels Tieren der Gewässersohle (Makrozoobenthos, Abk.: MZB) zu erfassen. Es wurde eine Bewertungsmethode für das Management dieser Fließgewässer entwickelt, welche die Anforderungen der Europäischen Wasserrahmenrichtlinie (WRRL) für das MZB erfüllt. Das entwickelte Verfahren orientiert sich an der aktuell vorhandenen offiziellen Bewertungsmethode (PERLODES) für ständig wasserführende Fließgewässer in Deutschland. Im Emscher-Lippe Raum wurden 33 Probestellen aus sommertrockenen Bächen auf ihre Besiedlung durch das MZB untersucht. An den Probestellen wurden zusätzlich chemisch-physikalische Parameter und Strukturgüteparameter aufgenommen. Durch die Auswertung dieser Datengrundlage wurden biologische Messgrößen abgeleitet, die signifikant und vorhersagbar auf strukturelle Verschlechterungen reagieren. Aus den biologischen Messgrößen wurde dann ein Index entwickelt, der die Einteilung von sommertrockenen Bächen des Tiefland in ein fünf Klassensystem zur Beurteilung des ökologischen Zustands nach WRRL ermöglicht.
Abstract
Water management and environmental protection is vulnerable to extreme low flows during streamflow droughts. During the last decades, in most rivers of Central Europe summer runoff and low flows have decreased. Discharge projections agree that future decrease in runoff is likely for catchments in Brandenburg, Germany. Depending on the first-order controls on low flows, different adaption measures are expected to be appropriate. Small catchments were analyzed because they are expected to be more vulnerable to a changing climate than larger rivers. They are mainly headwater catchments with smaller ground water storage. Local characteristics are more important at this scale and can increase vulnerability.
This thesis mutually evaluates potential adaption measures to sustain minimum runoff in small catchments of Brandenburg, Germany, and similarities of these catchments regarding low flows. The following guiding questions are addressed: (i) Which first-order controls on low flows and related time scales exist? (ii) Which are the differences between small catchments regarding low flow vulnerability? (iii) Which adaption measures to sustain minimum runoff in small catchments of Brandenburg are appropriate considering regional low flow patterns?
Potential adaption measures to sustain minimum runoff during periods of low flows can be classified into three categories: (i) increase of groundwater recharge and subsequent baseflow by land use change, land management and artificial ground water recharge, (ii) increase of water storage with regulated outflow by reservoirs, lakes and wetland water management and (iii) regional low flow patterns have to be considered during planning of measures with multiple purposes (urban water management, waste water recycling and inter-basin water transfer). The question remained whether water management of areas with shallow groundwater tables can efficiently sustain minimum runoff. Exemplary, water management scenarios of a ditch irrigated area were evaluated using the model Hydrus-2D. Increasing antecedent water levels and stopping ditch irrigation during periods of low flows increased fluxes from the pasture to the stream, but storage was depleted faster during the summer months due to higher evapotranspiration. Fluxes from this approx. 1 km long pasture with an area of approx. 13 ha ranged from 0.3 to 0.7 ls-1 depending on scenario. This demonstrates that numerous of such small decentralized measures are necessary to sustain minimum runoff in meso-scale catchments.
Differences in the low flow risk of catchments and meteorological low flow predictors were analyzed. A principal component analysis was applied on daily discharge of 37 catchments between 1991 and 2006. Flows decreased more in Southeast Brandenburg according to meteorological forcing. Low flow risk was highest in a region east of Berlin because of intersection of a more continental climate and the specific geohydrology. In these catchments, flows decreased faster during summer and the low flow period was prolonged. A non-linear support vector machine regression was applied to iteratively select meteorological predictors for annual 30-day minimum runoff in 16 catchments between 1965 and 2006. The potential evapotranspiration sum of the previous 48 months was the most important predictor (r2 = 0.28). The potential evapotranspiration of the previous 3 months and the precipitation of the previous 3 months and last year increased model performance (r2 = 0.49, including all four predictors). Model performance was higher for catchments with low yield and more damped runoff. In catchments with high low flow risk, explanatory power of long term potential evapotranspiration was high.
Catchments with a high low flow risk as well as catchments with a considerable decrease in flows in southeast Brandenburg have the highest demand for adaption. Measures increasing groundwater recharge are to be preferred. Catchments with high low flow risk showed relatively deep and decreasing groundwater heads allowing increased groundwater recharge at recharge areas with higher altitude away from the streams. Low flows are expected to stay low or decrease even further because long term potential evapotranspiration was the most important low flow predictor and is projected to increase during climate change. Differences in low flow risk and runoff dynamics between catchments have to be considered for management and planning of measures which do not only have the task to sustain minimum runoff.
Der Bericht beschreibt die Aktivitäten des Projekts RADOST in den fünf Modulen „Netzwerk und Dialog“, „Natur- und ingenieurwissenschaftliche Forschung“, „Sozio-ökonomische Analyse“, „Nationaler und europäischer Politikrahmen/ nationaler und internationaler Austausch“ und „Kommunikation und Verbreitung der Ergebnisse“ und deckt den Zeitraum von April 2012 bis Januar 2013 ab.