| 1. |
- Groß, Elisabeth, et al.
(author)
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Links between Nordic and Arctic hydroclimate and vegetation changes : Contribution to possible landscape-scale nature-based solutions
- 2018
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In: Land Degradation and Development. - : Wiley. - 1085-3278 .- 1099-145X. ; 29:10, s. 3663-3673
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In Nordic and Arctic regions, the rapidly warming climate sustains hydroclimatic and vegetation changes in the landscape. There is evidence for an increase in vegetation density in some regions, a trend that is expected as a response to increasing temperature and precipitation. If the hydroclimatic changes are linked to vegetation response, it could be viewed as a landscape-scale nature-based solution (NBS) that could moderate the runoff response, as denser vegetation should lead to increased evapotranspiration and lower runoff. In this paper, we investigate and compare hydroclimatic changes over a set of basins in the Nordic region and northwest America and compare with changes in vegetation density, analyzed using the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) for three time periods: 1973-1978, 1993-1998, and 2013-2016. Over the period of the 1970s to 1990s, the hydroclimate became warmer and wetter and vegetation density increased, but over a later period from the 1990s to 2010s, vegetation density decreased, despite a continuing warming and wetting of the climate. Although there was a tendency for runoff to decrease in basins where vegetation density increased, the relation between precipitation and runoff was much stronger. Overall, we found weak evidence for vegetation density changes, driven by hydroclimate, to act as NBS on the landscape scale over the studied regions. However, as hydroclimatic changes interact with vegetation changes and their ensuing hydrological responses in complex ways, more detailed investigations are needed to determine the potential NBS effect on the landscape scale across Nordic and Arctic regions.
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| 2. |
- Mård Karlsson, Johanna, 1979-, et al.
(author)
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Opportunities and limitations to detect climate-related regime shifts in inland Arctic ecosystems through eco-hydrological monitoring
- 2011
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In: Environmental Research Letters. - : IOP Publishing. - 1748-9326. ; 6:1, s. 014015-
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This study has identified and mapped the occurrences of three different types of climate-driven and hydrologically mediated regime shifts in inland Arctic ecosystems: (i) from tundra to shrubland or forest, (ii) from terrestrial ecosystems to thermokarst lakes and wetlands, and (iii) from thermokarst lakes and wetlands to terrestrial ecosystems. The area coverage of these shifts is compared to that of hydrological and hydrochemical monitoring relevant to their possible detection. Hotspot areas are identified within the Yukon, Mackenzie, Barents/Norwegian Sea and Ob river basins, where systematic water monitoring overlaps with ecological monitoring and observed ecosystem regime shift occurrences, providing opportunities for linked eco-hydrological investigations that can improve our regime shift understanding, and detection and prediction capabilities. Overall, most of the total areal extent of shifts from tundra to shrubland and from terrestrial to aquatic regimes is in hydrologically and hydrochemically unmonitored areas. For shifts from aquatic to terrestrial regimes, related water and waterborne nitrogen and phosphorus fluxes are relatively well monitored, while waterborne carbon fluxes are unmonitored. There is a further large spatial mismatch between the coverage of hydrological and that of ecological monitoring, implying a need for more coordinated monitoring efforts to detect the waterborne mediation and propagation of changes and impacts associated with Arctic ecological regime shifts.
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| 5. |
- Jarsjö, Jerker, et al.
(author)
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Hydrological responses to climate change conditioned by historic alterations of land use and water use
- 2012
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In: Hydrology and Earth System Sciences. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1027-5606 .- 1607-7938. ; 16:5, s. 1335-1347
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This paper quantifies and conditions expected hydrological responses in the Aral Sea Drainage Basin (ASDB; occupying 1.3% of the earth's land surface), Central Asia, to multi-model projections of climate change in the region from 20 general circulation models (GCMs). The aim is to investigate how uncertainties of future climate change interact with the effects of historic human re-distributions of water for land irrigation to influence future water fluxes and water resources. So far, historic irrigation changes have greatly amplified water losses by evapotranspiration (ET) in the ASDB, whereas 20th century climate change has not much affected the regional net water loss to the atmosphere. Results show that errors in temperature (T) and precipitation (P) from single GCMs have large influence on projected change trends (for the period 2010-2039) of river runoff (R), even though the ASDB is spatially well resolved by current GCMs. By contrast, observed biases in GCM ensemble mean results have relatively small influence on projected R change trends. Ensemble mean results show that projected future climate change will considerably increase the net water loss to the atmosphere. Furthermore, the ET response strength to any future T change will be further increased by maintained (or increased) irrigation practices, which shows how climate change and water use change can interact in modifying ET (and R). With maintained irrigation practices, R is likely to decrease to near-total depletion, with risk for cascading ecological regime shifts in aquatic ecosystems downstream of irrigated land areas. Without irrigation, the agricultural areas of the principal Syr Darya river basin could sustain a 50% higher T increase (of 2.3 A degrees C instead of the projected 1.5 A degrees C until 2010-2039) before yielding the same consumptive ET increase and associated R decrease as with the present irrigation practices.
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| 6. |
- Bring, Arvid, 1980-
(author)
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Arctic Climate and Water Change : Information Relevance for Assessment and Adaptation
- 2013
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The Arctic is subject to growing economic and political interest. Meanwhile, its water and climate systems are in rapid transformation. Relevant and accessible information about water and climate is therefore vital to detect, understand and adapt to the changes. This thesis investigates hydrological monitoring systems, climate model data, and our understanding of hydro-climatic change, for adaptation to water system changes in the Arctic. Results indicate a lack of harmonized water chemistry data, which may impede efforts to understand transport and origin of key waterborne constituents. Further development of monitoring cannot rely only on a reconciliation of observations and projections on where climate change will be the most severe, as they diverge in this regard. Climate model simulations of drainage basin temperature and precipitation have improved between two recent model generations, but large inaccuracies remain for precipitation projections. Late 20th-century discharge changes in major Arctic rivers generally show excess of water relative to precipitation changes. This indicates a possible contribution of stored water from permafrost or groundwater to sea level rise. The river contribution to the increasing Arctic Ocean freshwater inflow matches that of glaciers, which underlines the importance of considering all sources when assessing change. To provide adequate information for research and policy, Arctic hydrological and hydrochemical monitoring needs to be extended, better integrated and made more accessible. This especially applies to hydrochemistry monitoring, where a more complete set of monitored basins is motivated, including a general extension for the large unmonitored areas close to the Arctic Ocean. Improvements in climate model parameterizations are needed, in particular for precipitation projections. Finally, further water-focused data and modeling efforts are required to resolve the source of excess discharge in Arctic rivers.
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| 7. |
- Bring, Arvid, et al.
(author)
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Divergent relevance and prioritization basis for hydro-climatic change monitoring in the Arctic
- 2012
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Climate change affects society and the Earth System largely through water cycle changes, such as altered precipitation patterns and increased drought and flood pressures. In the Arctic, which undergoes a particularly large and rapid environmental transformation, information on water cycle changes is crucial to plan for societal adaptation. A prioritization strategy is then needed for how (where and when) monitoring should be focused to get the most relevant information and data on Arctic hydro-climatic change with limited available resources. We investigate different possible strategies for a geographic prioritization of hydro-climatic change monitoring in the Arctic. Results show conflicting prioritization basis across 14 major Arctic hydrological basins. The current monitoring density distribution is relevant for the so far observed but not for the projected future changes in Arctic climate. The present and the projected future hot-spots of greatest climate change differ, so that major spatial shifts must be anticipated in the future with regard to climate change severity across the Arctic. Important temporal shifts must further be anticipated in several major Arctic basins with currently decreasing but expected future increasing precipitation.
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| 10. |
- Ma, Yan, 1991-
(author)
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Quantifying hydroclimatic change impacts on infectious diseases : Signals and geographies from local to global scale
- 2023
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Hydroclimatic change has the potential to directly or indirectly increase the occurrence and expand or shift the geographical range of infectious diseases. This may pose particular threats in the Nordic-Arctic Region, where warming is more rapid than in other parts of the world, but the climate sensitivities of various infectious diseases still remain to be investigated in this and other regions. This thesis aims to further our understanding of and predictive capability for the relationships between hydroclimatic change and infectious diseases. To achieve this aim, statistical correlation relationships were analyzed between seven potentially climate-sensitive infectious diseases and a range of hydroclimatic variables across various geographical scales and parts of the Nordic-Arctic Region. The studied diseases were: borreliosis/Lyme disease, tularemia, leptospirosis, Q fever, TBE, Puumala virus infection, and cryptosporidiosis. Hydroclimatic sensitivity has also been investigated through a statistical disease model, site-specifically parameterized at local scale, for the case of tularemia at different Swedish sites (counties) and for different scenarios of future hydroclimatic change. Moreover, for the relatively widespread Lyme disease and cryptosporidiosis, a scoping review approach has been applied to investigate how the complexity of the hydroclimate-disease relationships is considered and quantified in research so far and what key research gaps remain to be bridged.Results identify distinct hydroclimatic variables that are significantly correlated with six of the seven studied human diseases at large spatial scale over the Nordic-Arctic Region. The indicated hydroclimatic disease-driving variables and associated change relationships are to some degree consistent with previous reasoning-based discussions of climate-sensitivity of infectious diseases as increasing threats for humans. Notable exceptions are TBE and leptospirosis, which tend to decrease with increasing regional temperature and precipitation. Borreliosis (Lyme disease) exhibits consistent climate sensitivity at different geographical scales and region parts, considering the whole or either the southern or the northern part of the studied Nordic-Arctic Region. In contrast, tularemia does not exhibit any particular climate sensitivity signal at the large regional scale, even though such sensitivity is evident in local-based statistical disease models. This shows that, in general, investigations at multiple geographical scales and regions, and with different quantitative approaches are needed to obtain a complete picture of hydroclimate-disease relationships. Furthermore, along a latitudinal gradient across Sweden, the likely most realistic medium climate forcing scenario indicates future disease decreases (intermittent or overall) for the relatively southern Swedish counties, and disease increases of considerable or high degree for the intermediate and more northern counties. The projections also show that scenarios of steeper future climate warming do not necessarily lead to a steeper increase in future disease outbreaks and that uncertainties in the disease projections may be large and stem from both the disease models and the climate models. Important research gaps are further identified in research so far on the hydroclimate-disease relationships for Lyme disease and cryptosporidiosis. The gaps regard in particular water-related and socioeconomic factors for Lyme disease, and land-related factors for cryptosporidiosis. For both diseases, climate and other driver-pressure interactions with host and parasite communities are overall understudied. In addition, Asia and Africa emerge as main geographical research gaps for Lyme disease and cryptosporidiosis, respectively. Overall, the consistencies and controversies emerging from the statistical analysis, the uncertainties appearing in the scenario projections, and the research gaps identified by the scoping review in this thesis indicate possible biases in our understanding of hydroclimate-disease relationships and propose relevant directions for future research.
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