Climate Impact on Low Flows and Droughts

01.02.2011 - 31.12.2013
Research funding project
The purpose of the project is to analyse the potential impact of climate change on low flows and droughts in Austria. The approach adopted consists of a number of comple-mentary work packages that are designed to strengthen the credibility of the impact projections. Scenario based analyses of future low flows and droughts are performed in both statistical and deterministic modes to be able to account for differences in the pre-dictability of future climate variables. Future air temperatures are known with better confidence than is future precipitation and these differences are mapped onto the low flow and drought projections. To support these projections, statistical analyses of hydro-logical low flows and droughts are performed in a space-time context which go beyond the traditional single-site trend analyses and identify spatial fluctuations and trends by exploiting the space-time correlations of low flow and drought patterns. By assessing the relative credibility of the various analyses steps the potential climate impact on low flows and droughts will be inferred. An important result are estimates of uncertainty bounds of the projections to understand the robustness of the project findings.

People

Project leader

Project personnel

Institute

Grant funds

  • Kommunalkredit Austria AG (National) Kommunalkredit Public Consulting (KPC)

Research focus

  • Environmental Monitoring and Climate Adaptation: 100%

Keywords

GermanEnglish
Klimaänderungclimate change
Dürrendroughts

Publications