Evaluation of the effectiveness of Natural Water Retention Measures - Support to the EU Blueprint to Safeguard Europe’s Waters

In the context of the impact assessment for the policy document "Blueprint to safeguard Europe's waters", the European Commission has developed a common baseline scenario bringing together climate, land use and socio-economic scenarios and looking at the implications for water resources availability and use under different policy scenarios. This study was carried out by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission with the support of Stella Consulting SPRL, Brussels. It shows the impact of no-regret natural water retention measures on water quantity which can, in turn, be used to quantify ecosystem services related to water provision, water flow regulation and the moderation of extreme flows. It also contributes to the identification of multifunctional adaptation measures that reduce the vulnerability of water resources and related ecosystem services to climate change and other anthropogenic pressures. Within the context of this report “no-regret” is solely based on hydrological impact. The additional report “A multi-criteria optimisation of scenarios for the protection of water resources in Europe” (EUR25552) addresses co-benefits and costs. The novelty of this study is in linking climate, land use and hydrological scenarios and models on a pan European scale and providing a first quantitative pan-European overview of the effects of ‘green’ measures on discharge. This should encourage Member States to further explore the use of efficiency measures and foster communication between stakeholders. 12 different policy scenarios were used, addressing changes in forest and urban areas, agriculture practice, and water retention. Locally some of these scenarios were estimated to change low flows and flood discharge up to 20%. For the 21 defined macro-regions in Europe there is a clear difference in the impacts of measures and for each region the effectiveness of each scenario has been ranked in terms of increasing low flow or reducing flood peaks.

[1]  J. Huisman,et al.  Impact of a conversion from cropland to grassland on C and N storage and related soil properties: Analysis of a 60-year chronosequence , 2006 .

[2]  Luc Feyen,et al.  Improving pan-European hydrological simulation of extreme events through statistical bias correction of RCM-driven climate simulations , 2011 .

[3]  Erwin Zehe,et al.  Comparison of conceptual model performance using different representations of spatial variability , 2008 .

[4]  O. Strebel,et al.  Quantitative und qualitative Veränderungen im A‐Horizont von Sandböden nach Umwandlung von Dauergrünland in Ackerland , 1988 .

[5]  J. Bölscher,et al.  Decentralised water retention along the river channels in a mesoscale catchment in south-eastern Germany , 2011 .

[6]  P. Jones,et al.  A European daily high-resolution gridded data set of surface temperature and precipitation for 1950-2006 , 2008 .

[7]  J. Christensen,et al.  A summary of the PRUDENCE model projections of changes in European climate by the end of this century , 2007 .

[8]  C. Lavalle,et al.  A procedure to obtain a refined European land use/cover map , 2013 .

[9]  Ted M. Zobeck,et al.  Carbon and nitrogen pools of Southern High Plains cropland and grassland soils , 2004 .

[10]  Bas van Wesemael,et al.  Regional assessment of soil organic carbon changes under agriculture in Southern Belgium (1955-2005) , 2007 .

[11]  L. Ahuja,et al.  Advances and challenges in predicting agricultural management effects on soil hydraulic properties , 2003 .

[12]  J. M. Van Der Knijff,et al.  LISFLOOD : a GIS-based distributed model for river basin scale water balance and flood simulation , 2008 .

[13]  Robert L. Wilby,et al.  Uncertainty in water resource model parameters used for climate change impact assessment , 2005 .

[14]  Ross E. McMurtrie,et al.  Does conversion of forest to agricultural land change soil carbon and nitrogen? a review of the literature , 2002 .

[15]  P. Linden,et al.  ENSEMBLES: Climate Change and its Impacts - Summary of research and results from the ENSEMBLES project , 2009 .

[16]  Axel Bronstert,et al.  Multi‐scale modelling of land‐use change and river training effects on floods in the Rhine basin , 2007 .

[17]  D. Mulla,et al.  Influence of Alternative and Conventional Management Practices on Soil Physical and Hydraulic Properties , 2006 .

[18]  J. Christensen,et al.  On the need for bias correction of regional climate change projections of temperature and precipitation , 2008 .

[19]  C. Varadachari,et al.  Changes in carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus levels due to deforestation and cultivation: A case study in Simlipal National Park, India , 2004, Plant and Soil.

[20]  Jouni Räisänen,et al.  21st Century changes in snow climate in Northern Europe: a high-resolution view from ENSEMBLES regional climate models , 2012, Climate Dynamics.

[21]  L. Stroosnijder,et al.  Effects of agroecological land use succession on soil properties in Chemoga watershed, Blue Nile basin, Ethiopia , 2003 .

[22]  S. R. Wilkinson,et al.  Soil organic C and N pools under long-term pasture management in the Southern Piedmont USA , 2000 .

[23]  P. Paruolo,et al.  Bias correction of the ENSEMBLES high resolution climate change projections for use by impact models , 2011 .

[24]  J. Gregory,et al.  A comparison of extreme European daily precipitation simulated by a global and a regional climate model for present and future climates , 2001 .

[25]  S. Hagemann,et al.  Statistical bias correction of global simulated daily precipitation and temperature for the application of hydrological models , 2010 .

[26]  Paracchini Maria-Luisa,et al.  Riparian zones: where green and blue networks meet. Pan-European zonation modelling based on remote sensing and GIS , 2011 .

[27]  Sabine Attinger,et al.  The effects of spatial discretization and model parameterization on the prediction of extreme runoff characteristics , 2010 .

[28]  A. L. Black,et al.  Soil Carbon, Nitrogen, and Bulk Density Comparisons in Two Cropland Tillage Systems after 25 Years and in Virgin Grassland 1 , 1981 .

[29]  J. Melillo,et al.  SOIL CARBON AND NITROGEN STOCKS FOLLOWING FOREST CLEARING FOR PASTURE IN THE SOUTHWESTERN , 1997 .

[30]  Matthew D. Collins,et al.  Towards quantifying uncertainty in transient climate change , 2006 .

[31]  Julia A. Jones,et al.  Hydrological principles for sustainable management of forest ecosystems , 2011 .

[32]  M. Keller,et al.  Tropical rain forest conversion to pasture: Changes in vegetation and soil properties , 1994 .

[33]  Jan Feranec,et al.  Land cover changes in small catchments in Slovakia during 1990–2006 and their effects on frequency of flood events , 2011 .

[34]  A. Jalalian,et al.  Deforestation effects on soil physical and chemical properties, Lordegan, Iran , 2004, Plant and Soil.

[35]  Eric A. Davidson,et al.  Changes in soil carbon inventories following cultivation of previously untilled soils , 1993 .

[36]  Karl Auerswald,et al.  Spatio-temporal patterns in land use and management affecting surface runoff response of agricultural catchments - A review , 2009 .

[37]  Erik Kjellström,et al.  Using and Designing GCM–RCM Ensemble Regional Climate Projections , 2010 .

[38]  David Paré,et al.  Carbon accumulation in agricultural soils after afforestation: a meta‐analysis , 2010 .