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Deltares | R&D Highlights 2015
Impacts of groundwater
conservation on
vegetation patterns
It therefore led to an improvement in model performance. The model demonstrated that different climate-change scenarios affect groundwater flow patterns in different ways, reducing the regional flow in one location and increasing it elsewhere. An evaluation was made of the effects of climate and socio-economic change, climate adaptation measures and policy legislation on changes in the use of agricultural land and the subsequent effects on hydrology, vegetation distribution and communities. Changes in land use triggered the largest effects, followed by the climate adaptation measures and climate change. The results stress the importance of an interdisciplinary model approach if vegetation responses are to be evaluated successfully.
Further reading:
Van der Knaap (2016). Stream valley catchments in times of climate change: an ecohydrological approach, PhD thesis, VU-University Amsterdam Example of model results
One of the tasks of regional water managers is to configure the spatial arrangement of landscape elements in stream valley catchments while optimising biodiversity in the context of a range of scenarios involving climate change and climate adaptation measures. To help them perform this task, a range of effects of groundwater conservation measures were determined by combining greenhouse experiments, database analyses, field work and a new hydrology-vegetation model-ling approach. The doctorate research was part of Climate Adaptation for Rural Areas (CARE), a part of the Knowledge for Climate research programme. The project focused on a stream valley catchment in the south-east of the Netherlands, the Tungelroyse Beek.
The responses of plant species to extreme drought and inundation events were recorded in the greenhouse experiments by observing plant performance and plant trait plasticity, in other words the ability of plants to adjust their characteristics. The results showed that the sequence of extreme hydrological events of droughts and floods determines plant response. Three plant traits (root porosity, specific leaf area and leaf phosphorus content) were identified as potential predictors of how plant species respond to these events.
The database analysis looked at differences in the traits of species at recharge or discharge sites. Differences were found in five traits, although the explained variance was low.
A new model tool was used to differentiate between local and regional groundwater discharge sites. The model results were compared with field data and the new model tool was found to provide a better match with the data collected in the field than the model output based on modelled head differences alone. remco.vanek@deltares.nl
T +31(0)6 3021 8365
yasmijn.van.der.knaap@rivm.nl T +31(0)30 274 2047
Water and Subsoil Resources Theme
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Reference
Climate change + measures
