Modelling of climate change impact on flow conditions in the lowland anastomosing river

Abstract

The progressive degradation of freshwater ecosystems worldwide requires action to be taken for their conservation. Nowadays, protection strategies need to step beyond the traditional approach of managing protected areas as they have to deal with the protection or recovery of natural flow regimes disrupted by the effects of future climate conditions. Climate change affects the hydrosphere at catchment scale altering hydrological processes which in turn impact hydrodynamics at the river reach scale. Therefore, conservation strategies should consider mathematical models, which allow for an improved understanding of ecosystem functions and their interactions across different spatial and temporal scales. This study focuses on an anastomosing river system in north-eastern Poland, where in recent decades a significant loss of the anabranches has been observed. The objective was to assess the impact of projected climate change on average flow conditions in the anastomosing section of the Narew River. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT software) for the Narew catchment was coupled with the HEC-RAS one-dimensional unsteady flow model. The study looked into projected changes for two future time horizons 2021–2050 and 2071–2100 under the Representative Concentration Pathway 4.5 using an ensemble of nine EURO-CORDEX model scenarios. Results show that low flow conditions in the anastomosing section of the Narew National Park will remain relatively stable in 2021–2050 compared to current conditions and will slightly increase in 2071–2100. Duration of low flows, although projected to decrease on an annual basis, will increase for August–October, when the loss on anastomoses was found to be the most intense. Hydraulic modeling indicated extremely low flow velocities in the anastomosing arm (<0.1 m/s) nowadays and under future projections which is preferable for in-stream vegetation development and their gradual sedimentation and closure.