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| Titel |
Evaluation of groundwater droughts in Austria |
| VerfasserIn |
Johannes Christoph Haas, Steffen Birk |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2015
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 17 (2015) |
| Datensatznummer |
250102212
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 EGU/EGU2015-1520.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| Droughts are abnormally dry periods that affect various aspects of human life on earth,
ranging from negative impacts on agriculture or industry, to being the cause for conflict and
loss of human life. The changing climate reinforces the importance of investigations into this
phenomenon.
Various methods to analyze and classify droughts have been developed. These include
drought indices such as the Standard Precipitation Index SPI, the Palmer Drought Severity
Index PDSI or the Crop Moisture Index CMI. These and other indices consider
meteorological parameters and/or their effects on soil moisture. A depletion of soil moisture
triggered by low precipitation and high evapotranspiration may also cause reduced
groundwater recharge and thus decreasing groundwater levels and reduced groundwater flow
to springs, streams, and wetlands. However, the existing indices were generally not designed
to address such drought effects on groundwater. Thus, a Standardized Groundwater level
Index has recently been proposed by Bloomfied and Marchant (2013). Yet, to our
knowledge, this approach has only been applied to consolidated aquifers in the
UK.
This work analyzes time series of groundwater levels from various, mostly
unconsolidated aquifers in Austria in order to characterize the effects of droughts on aquifers
in different hydrogeologic and climatic settings as well as under different usage scenarios. In
particular, comparisons are made between the water rich Alpine parts of Austria, and the
dryer parts situated in the East. The time series of groundwater levels are compared to other
data, such as meteorological time series and written weather records about generally accepted
phenomena, such as the 2003 European drought and heat wave. Thus, valuable insight is
gained into the propagation of meteorological droughts through the soil and the
aquifer in different types of hydrogeologic and climatic settings, which provides a
prerequisite for the assessment of the aquifers’ drought susceptibility in a changing
climate.
References:
Bloomfield, J. P. & Marchant, B. P.
Analysis of groundwater drought building on the standardised precipitation index
approach
Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 2013, 17, 4769-4787 |
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