A new study shows that future ecosystem functioning will increasingly depend on water availability. Using recent simulations from climate models, an international team of scientists found several “hot spot regions” where increasing water limitation strongly affects ecosystems. These include Central Europe, the Amazon, and western Russia. Pinpointing such regions is essential: …
Continue readingTag: Drought
Drought makes heatwaves hotter, but less deadly
During heatwaves, there is no rain and the soil dries out. This further enhances the rising of heatwave temperatures. But remarkably, desiccated soils also have an advantage: they reduce air humidity and make a heatwave less deadly to humans. Heatwaves and droughts are causing acute excess mortality and damage to …
Continue readingPhD defense Joost Buitink
On 20 October 2021, Joost Buitink will defend his PhD thesis entitled “Capturing hydrological variability – Spatio-temporal aspects of the Rhine basin” Dealing with spatio-temporal variability in hydrological processes and states is a major challenge in hydrology. In his thesis, Joost has investigated different elements of variability, with emphasis on …
Continue readingReducing drought by changing the surface water system
Experiences from recent droughts show that elevated sandy areas in the southern and eastern Netherlands are vulnerable to drought (see e.g. Buitink et al., 2020). Transporting water to these areas is difficult due to their elevation and distance to river systems. In addition, the use of surface water for functions …
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