Increasing synchrony of annual river-flood peaks and growing season in Europe

Balke, T. and Nilsson, C. (2019) Increasing synchrony of annual river-flood peaks and growing season in Europe. Geophysical Research Letters, 46(17-18), pp. 446-453. (doi: 10.1029/2019GL084612)

Abstract

In a changing climate, time sensitive ecological interactions such as pollination and predation are vulnerable to temporal mismatch with direct consequences for ecosystem functioning. It is not known if synchrony and asynchrony of ecological and physical processes such as flood disturbance and plant phenology may similarly be affected by climate change. Here, by spatially merging temperature and flood peak data, we show for the first time that in Central and Eastern Europe annual river flood peaks increasingly occur within the thermal growing season. This is due to the combined effect of earlier springs and later flood peaks. Such increased physical‐phenological synchrony may especially impact river biogeomorphology and riparian floodplain ecosystem functioning through uprooting of seedlings and increased hydraulic roughness during major flood events.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Balke, Dr Thorsten
• Authors: Balke, T., and Nilsson, C.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Geographical and Earth Sciences
• Journal Name: Geophysical Research Letters
• Publisher: Wiley
• ISSN: 0094-8276
• ISSN (Online): 1944-8007
• Published Online: 29 August 2019
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2019 American Geophysical Union
• First Published: First published in Geophysical Research Letters 46(17-18):446-453
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the publisher copyright policy