Hydrogeological response to climate change in alpine hillslopes
Published in Hydrological Processes, 2016
Climate change threatens water resources in snowmelt-dependent regions by altering the fraction of snow and rain and spurring an earlier snowmelt season. The bulk of hydrological research has focused on forecasting response in streamflow volumes and timing to a shrinking snowpack; however, the degree to which subsurface storage offsets the loss of snow storage in various alpine geologic settings, i.e. the hydrogeologic buffering capacity, is still largely unknown. We address this research need by assessing the affects of climate change on storage and runoff generation for two distinct hydrogeologic settings present in alpine systems: a low storage granitic and a greater storage volcanic hillslope. We use a physically based integrated hydrologic model fully coupled to a land surface model to run a base scenario and then three progressive warming scenarios, and account for the shifts in each component of the water budget.
Recommended citation: Markovich, K. H., Maxwell, R. M., and Fogg, G. E. (2016) Hydrogeological response to climate change in alpine hillslopes. Hydrol. Process., 30: 3126–3138. doi: 10.1002/hyp.10851.
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