More intense heatwaves under drier conditions: a compound event analysis in the Adige River basin (Eastern Italian Alps)

Lemus-Canovas, Marc; Crespi, Alice; Maines, Elena; Terzi, Stefano; Pittore, Massimiliano

doi:10.5194/hess-29-6781-2025

Articles | Volume 29, issue 22

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-6781-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-6781-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 29, issue 22

Research article

|

28 Nov 2025

Research article |

| 28 Nov 2025

More intense heatwaves under drier conditions: a compound event analysis in the Adige River basin (Eastern Italian Alps)

Marc Lemus-Canovas, Alice Crespi, Elena Maines, Stefano Terzi, and Massimiliano Pittore

Data sets

Compound Drought and Heatwave (CDHW) event indicators for the Adige River catchment (1950–2023) Elena Maines et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14859795

ERA5 hourly data on single levels from 1940 to present H. Hersbach et al. https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.adbb2d47

HERA: a high-resolution pan-European hydrological reanalysis (1951-2020) A. Tilloy et al. https://doi.org/10.2905/a605a675-9444-4017-8b34-d66be5b18c95

Snow cover in the European Alps: Station observations of snow depth and depth of snowfall (v1.3) M. Matiu et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5109574

Global mountain snow cover phenology from MODIS/Terra imagery (Version 1) C. Notarnicola https://doi.org/10.48784/1zvv-nw59

Model code and software

lemuscanovas/climattR: 0.1.1 (0.1.1) Marc Lemus-Canovas https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15772290

Short summary

We studied a severe compound drought and heatwave event in the Adige River basin in May 2022 and found that similar events are now hotter and drier due to current warming. These changes worsen water stress and river drying. We show that timing matters: events in June are now more critical than in April, as the snowmelt contribution to streamflow in June has become much lower than in the past. However, many climate models still fail to capture these changes.