| 1. |
- Barthel, Roland, 1967, et al.
(författare)
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Current understanding of groundwater recharge and groundwater drought in Sweden compared to countries with similar geology and climate
- 2021
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Ingår i: Geografiska Annaler: Series A, Physical Geography. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0435-3676 .- 1468-0459. ; 103:4, s. 323-345
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Recently, groundwater in Sweden has attracted media attention due to supply shortages caused by dry periods and low groundwater levels. About half of Swedish drinking water stems from groundwater. The small Swedish aquifers are highly dependent on frequent and sufficient recharge. Groundwater recharge forms the link between meteorological and groundwater drought and thus the main link between climate change and sustainable water supply. This study evaluated whether the current knowledge on groundwater recharge and groundwater drought is sufficient to mitigate the impacts of climate change. A review of international literature on groundwater recharge in regions with conditions similar to Sweden was performed. National literature was compared and links to international studies evaluated. A survey among Swedish groundwater experts complemented the study. Findings are that research on groundwater recharge has been scarce in Sweden over the last decades and Swedish experts seem to not have taken much notice of international literature. It is concluded that Sweden is not well prepared to predict the impact of climate change on groundwater resources, as the most crucial process linking climate to groundwater is not well understood. The study has a strong focus on Sweden, however, the results are also relevant for countries with similar geology and climate. One main conclusion is that groundwater recharge studies often remain unique, and thus hardly transferable and comparable. Two or more independent studies are rarely applied in parallel, verification based on direct groundwater observations is not common. This raises concerns about the reliability of climate change impact predictions on groundwater.
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| 2. |
- Chen, Deliang, 1961, et al.
(författare)
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Hydroclimate changes over Sweden in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries: a millennium perspective
- 2021
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Ingår i: Geografiska Annaler: Series A, Physical Geography. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0435-3676 .- 1468-0459. ; 103:2, s. 103-31
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Climate change poses additional risks for natural and human systems including the hydrological cycle, leading to altered temporal and spatial variation of hydroclimatic conditions. This work assessed the current understanding of the dryness and wetness conditions in Sweden over the last two millenniums based on proxy and instrumental data, as well as climate model simulations and projections until the end of the twenty-first century. The assessment represents a summary of the existing literature concerning analysis of four selected indices for dry/wet conditions relating to precipitation, potential evapotranspiration (PET), and soil moisture (SPEI, PDSI [including scPDSI], SPI, and AI). SPEI considers both precipitation and PET and can show hydroclimatic conditions at different time scales. Therefore, it was chosen to summarize the past and future changes. A focus is put on dry conditions, as drought has strong influences on groundwater which is an important freshwater resource for Sweden. The millennium historical perspective reveals that the current climate is relatively wet and the future would become even wetter as a general wetting trend started some 120 years ago. However, there have been and will be large variations of both dry and wet conditions on short time scales, especially on decadal and interannual time scales. Further, the changes since the 1950s show a regional pattern with most significant wetting in the north, a slightly overall wetting in the south but a drying in central-eastern part including the island of Gotland since 1981. This pattern is broadly consistent with climate model projections for the future.
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