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Global change is posing a major challenge to existing forms of natural resource use, socio-economic development and institutional regulation. Although trends such as climate change, socio-economic transformation and institutional change are global in their scope, they have very specific regional outcomes. Regionally distinct coping strategies are required which take into account both the diversity of regional impacts of global change and the local contexts of appropriate responses. This paper explores the impacts of global change on the management of water infrastructure systems in the Berlin-Brandenburg region in terms of three concurrent and overlapping challenges: climate change, socio-economic change and institutional change. It subsequently examines how regional actors in the water sector are addressing these three dimensions of global change.
This special issue of DIE ERDE presents selected key topics discussed within the BBAW working group, including work by group members and invited external researchers, containing nine articles highlighting “Regional Water Challenges” resulting from different kinds of environmental and social changes. We aim to present the complexity of interaction between changes and responses. While the first four articles focus on describing climatic and hydrological changes and their causes, the following five articles focus more on possible mitigation and adaptation measures.
This special issue of DIE ERDE presents selected key topics discussed within the BBAW working group, including work by group members and invited external researchers, containing nine articles highlighting “Regional Water Challenges” resulting from different kinds of environmental and social changes. We aim to present the complexity of interaction between changes and responses. While the first four articles focus on describing climatic and hydrological changes and their causes, the following five articles focus more on possible mitigation and adaptation measures.
The article informs about historical developments and recent problems in the former wetlands of the Oderbruch, which has been cultivated for agricultural use for 300 years, and in the fen region of the Rhin-Havel-Luch. The periodically inundated floodplains of Oderbruch are characterised by rich-in-clay sedimentation soils, while Rhin-Havel-Luch is a year-round wet fen region with peat soils. In both areas land use necessarily requires an adequate regional water management, employing measures and system solutions for river training, dike construction, drainage and soil cultivation. Options for action and adaptation strategies for the next 20 to 40 years, based on many years of own analyses and case studies, are presented and discussed. The article also considers an aggravation of the problems to be expected from climate change.
Since humans are preferentially settling in flood plains they often influence freshwater systems intensely. The first signs of anthropogenic impacts on surface waters in the Berlin-Brandenburg region are approximately 3000 years old. Considering the multiple and intense human uses of surface waters in this region, we analysed when, how and to which extent regional rivers and streams became impacted by dams, water mills and fish weirs resulting in changes in morphology, hydrology and ecological functioning. We hypothesise that the development and growth of cities in this region necessitated (1) efficient navigability of rivers linking them, (2) efficient use of hydropower resources for mills, and (3) significant pollution of surface waters especially with the beginning of industrial development. We analyse these hypotheses by means of three regional examples and delineate the effects of human uses on selected surface water bodies. Understanding the effects of these historic modifications of surface water supports the identification of options for a sustainable use of surface waters that are currently still subjected to multiple uses but face a significant decrease in discharge due to climate change.
For decades, water resources have been used intensively for drinking water, industry, agriculture and energy production. This paper summarises the main anthropogenic influences on the water cycle in a Pleistocene landscape and associated geochemical reactions. The results allow the identification and description of the main hydraulic and geochemical processes that control water and solute fluxes in different hydrological compartments, in particular recharge and discharge regions. Under progressive climate change, this process-based knowledge should be used to adapt land and water management to minimise negative impacts on hydrological resources and stabilise the regional water balance in theBerlin-Brandenburg Pleistocene landscape. Based on these results, a risk assessment approach for validation of future management strategies under changing climate conditions is presented.
The climate change debate has increased the need for knowledge on both long- and short-term regional environmental changes. In general, these changes may often be a product of multiple causes, which complicates the separation of single driving forces. In this review we focus on current water budget changes in Germany’s capital region, Berlin-Brandenburg, over the last 30 years. Available studies from a variety of disciplines (e.g. hydrology, water engineering, landscape ecology, nature conservation) were analysed in order to (1) identify both local and regional hydrological changes, (2) reveal their potential causes, and (3) discuss responses of ecosystems and society. These studies show that the Berlin-Brandenburg region is widely characterised by decreasing groundwater recharge, leading to decreasing groundwater and lake levels as well as decreasing fluvial discharge. These trends result both from complex, regional human impacts (e.g. long-term effects of hydro-melioration and changes in forest composition) and more general climate warming. The observed and assumed (future) changes of the regional water balance have been creating, and will continue to create, multifaceted impacts on existing ecosystems and society (e.g. wetland drying, decrease of biodiversity, decrease of productivity of grasslands and forests, increasing conflicts of interests). Several efforts to respond to the regional water deficit problem have already been undertaken, comprising for instance land-use optimisation, wetland restoration measures and the reestablishment of mixed deciduous forests. In general, however, the reviewed regional material on this topic reveals that the number and complexity of empirical studies are still poor. Thus, for both the identification and the explanation of current water balance changes and their effects, as well as for development and implementation of adaptive strategies, further multidisciplinary research efforts at different scales, including interregional comparisons, are required. Furthermore, both the observation of hydrological changes and the evaluation of adaptive and mitigative responses require at least continuous or, even better, extended monitoring efforts.
Climate change is expected to increase water scarcity in northeast Germany. Land-use change is one of the options of mitigation that is intensely discussed in this region. This review aims at giving a compilation of existing data and modelling studies in order to investigate the potential and the limits of the land-use change approach.
The potential of agriculture, forestry, and other land uses to sequester carbon offers a powerful tool for controlling the global climate regime, but practices capable of creating “collateral” benefits for landscape conservation have thus far been disregarded. This paper calls for greater integration of scattered trees into agricultural landscapes, hypothesizing that agroforestry practices effectively store carbon and deliver other important ecosystem services as well. Several agroforests from the Upper Lusatia area in Eastern Germany have been selected for analysis. They cover relatively large areas of land (8.2%), even within this intensively used agricultural landscape, and their extent increased from 1964-2008 by 19.4%. Practices of conserving or promoting the six agroforest classes are compared with a catalogue of essential properties for becoming effective “carbon offset projects”. Criteria from mandatory and voluntary carbon markets for carbon sequestration are then applied (additionality, baselines, permanence, and carbon leakage). The study concludes that steps towards realization of “carbon sequestration projects” should include collecting empirical evidence regarding the carbon sequestration potential of temperate agroforestry systems, developing localised demonstration projects, and upscaling these projects to participate in established carbon markets.
This special issue of DIE ERDE presents selected key topics discussed within the BBAW working group, including work by group members and invited external researchers, containing nine articles highlighting “Regional Water Challenges” resulting from different kinds of environmental and social changes. We aim to present the complexity of interaction between changes and responses. While the first four articles focus on describing climatic and hydrological changes and their causes, the following five articles focus more on possible mitigation and adaptation measures.