the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Past, present and future rainfall erosivity in Central Europe based on convection-permitting climate simulations
Michael Haller
Christoph Brendel
Gudrun Hillebrand
Thomas Hoffmann
Abstract. Heavy rainfall is the main driver of soil erosion by water which is a threat to soil and water resources across the globe. As a consequence of climate change, precipitation – and especially extreme precipitation – is increasing in a warmer world, leading to an increase in rainfall erosivity. However, conventional global climate models struggle to represent extreme rain events and cannot provide precipitation data at the high spatio-temporal resolution that is needed for an accurate estimation of future rainfall erosivity. Convection-permitting simulations (CPS) on the other hand, provide high-resolution precipitation data and a better representation of extreme rain events, but they are mostly limited to relatively small spatial extents and short time periods. Here we present for the first time rainfall erosivity and soil erosion scenarios in a large modelling domain such as Central Europe based on high-resolution CPS climate data generated with COSMO-CLM. We calculate rainfall erosivity for the past (1971–2000), present (2001–2019), near future (2031–2060) and far future (2071–2100) and apply the new data set in the soil erosion model WaTEM/SEDEM for the Elbe River basin. Our results showed that future increases in rainfall erosivity in Central Europe can be up to 84 % in the river basins of Central Europe. These increases are much higher than previously estimated based on regression with mean annual precipitation. In consequence, soil erosion and sediment delivery in the Elbe River basin are also increasing strongly. Locally, changes in erosion rates can be as high as 120 %. We conclude that despite remaining limitations, convection-permitting simulations have an enormous and to date unexploited potential for climate impact studies on soil erosion. Thus, the soil erosion modelling community should follow closely the recent and future advances in climate modelling to take advantage of new CPS for climate impact studies.
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Magdalena Uber et al.
Status: open (until 08 Jul 2023)
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CC1: 'Comment on hess-2023-120', Panos Panagos, 19 May 2023
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The manuscript is very interesting and you have addressed a topic which contributes to better research on soil erosion modelling.
However, there are two inconsistencies that somehow “speculate” differences between your erosivity estimation and the ones from other studies.
The first one has to do with the use of the equations for kinetic energy Eq.2. You have used different equations than the ones of Panagos et al (2015). Using a different equation will have as a result to have different results in the R-factor estimation. Nobody argues that your equation is worst or better than the other one. However, you cannot speculate that the others have inconsistencies or underestimate erosivity. It is simply comparing somehow different outputs.
The second problematic has to do with the temporal scaling factor of 1.9. In the European study and the sub-sequent one of Panagos et al (2016) on conversion factors between different time resolutions, the authors have estimated a conversion factor of 1.56 between 60 minutes and 30-minutes difference. Obviously, your values will be much higher since you use a much higher conversion factor.
For those 2 reasons your figure 3a comparison is not correct and you are called to correct it. In addition, you have to discuss those assumptions/differences in estimating the erosivity.
Those two issues are the most problematic ones that researchers easily get into trouble.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2023-120-CC1 -
AC1: 'Reply on CC1', Magdalena Uber, 30 May 2023
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Dear Panos Panagos,
thank you for your comment and your interest in our study. Please find our answer in the attached file.
Best regards,
Magdalena Uber
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AC1: 'Reply on CC1', Magdalena Uber, 30 May 2023
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RC1: 'Comment on hess-2023-120', Anonymous Referee #1, 07 Jun 2023
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In the submitted paper authors investigate past, present and future rainfall erosivity in relation to soil erosion in Central Europe. Authors also compare rainfall erosivity maps derived using 1h precipitation data and maps derived based on the annual precipitation data with the consideration of simple empirical DIN equation. Soil erosion-sediment transport modelling is also conducted using the WaTEM/SEDEM model. The topics is very interesting and within the scope of the HESS journal. The paper is very well written, easy to follow. I only have some moderate comments and suggestions.
Firstly, authors only used the RCP8.5 scenario but this is only mentioned a few times in the manuscript. Authors should definitely state this more clearly in abstract and conclusions since probably RCP2.6 and RCP4.5 would yield smaller increase in the rainfall erosivity and also in the soil erosion rates. It would be definitely very interesting to include these scenarios if input data would be available. Hence, the presented results are significantly influenced by this selection (data availability actually since COSMO-CLM (CPS-SCEN) is only available for RCP8.5). Related to this I suggest that authors add some discussion in relation to using only RCP8.5 and try to elaborate a bit more about the possible results (i.e., deviations from the presented results) using also the RCP2.6 and RCP4.5.
Secondly, part of the results is influenced by the selection of the CMIP5 model ensemble. Since CMIP6 is also available authors should at least add some discussion about the impact of using CMIP5 instead of CMIP6. This is another selection done that has probably quite significant impact on the derived results.
Thirdly, authors used median of the model ensemble, can you add some additional results (e.g., 25% or 75% or 10-90% quantiles) to the Supplement in order to show what is the variability among the included models.
Finally, the results are also significantly influenced by the data time step (1h) since conversion factor needs to be applied. I suggest that authors add more discussion about the selected temporal scaling conversion factor (i.e., 1.9) and try to elaborate about the possible impact on the derived results (i.e., rainfall erosivity and modelled soil erosion and sediment transport rates).
Some specific comments:
-L161-162: Please add more details.
-Figure 3: Maybe add R2 to the figure as well.
-Discussion in section 3.4 is very useful.
-Figure 4: Please add more details about the Erosion Index in the Material and methods section.
-L461-465: From my perspective hourly resolution is actually quite problematic especially because the applied conversion factor (only one number (fixed for the whole period)), is used for different type of rainfall events (e.g., intense storms, longer duration events). In relation to this some progress should be made in future.
-L466-471: This is only valid for the RCP8.5. It should be clearly mentioned and discussed.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2023-120-RC1
Magdalena Uber et al.
Data sets
Past, present and future rainfall erosivity in Central Europe Magdalena Uber, Michael Haller, Christoph Brendel, Gudrun Hillebrand, and Thomas Hoffmann https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7628957
Magdalena Uber et al.
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