Publication Date:
2023-05-04
Description:
Hydrometeorological impacts, like floods, heat waves or droughts, affect many aspects of daily life and economic sectors in Central Europe such as health, water supply, agriculture, hydropower or transport. Within the last decade, the transport along the major European waterways heavily suffered from multiple droughts leading to remarkable low flow events resulting in disruptions in industrial production, limitations in fuel supply and significant economic losses. Future climate change is expected to lead to prolonged, more intense and more frequent low flow situations.In this context, the Federal Institute of Hydrology (BfG) developed and implemented multiple operational services providing hydrological information for the waterways in Germany on different time-scales: (1) An observation-based nationwide low flow information system is being developed, which will merge the multitude of information in order to facilitate a consistent evaluation and classification of low flow situations. (2) The well-established short-range water level forecasts are complemented by probabilistic medium-range to sub-seasonal forecasts for relevant gauges. Flow and water-level forecasts up to 6 weeks ahead are already operational (https://www.elwis.de/), forecasts on seasonal and decadal time scales are subject of current research. (3) On the multidecadal- to centennial time scale, BfG provides projections of future river flow, water levels, water temperatures and further ecological parameters. This service is part of a national “core service climate and water" supporting the German adaptation strategy since 2020 (https://ws-klimaportal.bafg.de/). The combination of these services supports operational and strategical decision making and contributes to an increased resilience of waterway transport with regards to hydrological hazards.
Language:
English
Type:
info:eu-repo/semantics/conferenceObject
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