Morava River Reconstruction
New paper
Posted by Jim Stagge on October 01, 2023
New Hydrological Research Reveals Insights into Morava River
Newly Published Research: Groundbreaking research conducted in collaboration with former postdoctoral researcher Max Torbenson has revealed crucial insights into the hydrology of the Morava River in the Czech Republic.
The study titled Increasing volatility of reconstructed Morava River warm-season flow, Czech Republic, was published in Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies.
Additional News coverage by The Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center
Study focus
Hydrological summer extremes represent a prominent natural hazard in Central Europe. River low flows constrain transport and water supply for agriculture, industry and society, and flood events are known to cause material damage and human loss. However, understanding changes in the frequency and magnitude of hydrological extremes is associated with great uncertainty due to the limited number of gauge observations. Here, we compile a tree-ring network to reconstruct the July–September baseflow variability of the Morava River from 1745 to 2018 CE. An ensemble of reconstructions was produced to assess the impact of calibration period length and trend on the long-term mean of reconstruction estimates. The final estimates represent the first baseflow reconstruction based on tree rings from the European continent. Simulated flows and historical documentation provide quantitative and qualitative validation of estimates prior to the 20th century.
New hydrological insights for the region
The reconstructions indicate an increased variability of warm-season flow during the past 100 years, with the most extreme high and low flows occurring after the start of instrumental observations. When analyzing the entire reconstruction, the negative trend in baseflow displayed by gauges across the basin after 1960 is not unprecedented. We conjecture that even lower flows could likely occur in the future considering that pre-instrumental trends were not primarily driven by rising temperature (and the evaporative demand) in contrast to the recent trends.