Sediment load assessments under climate change scenarios and a lack of integration between climatologists and environmental modelers.

Increasing precipitation accelerates soil erosion and boosts sediment loads, especially in mountain catchments. Therefore, there is significant pressure to deliver plausible assessments of these phenomena on a local scale under future climate change scenarios. Such assessments are primarily drawn from a combination of climate change projections and environmental model simulations, usually performed by climatologists and environmental modelers independently.

Total nitrogen and phosphorus loads in surface runoff from urban land use (city of Lublin) under climate change.

An expansion of impervious surfaces in urban areas leads to increases of nutrient loads discharged with the surface runoff to receivers. A study of a different density of urban development impact on total nitrogen (TN) and phosphorus (TP) loads from the city of Lublin (eastern Poland) with the use of the SWAT (Soil & Water Assessment Tool) model was performed. To distinguish between areas with high and low density of urban development (UHD and ULD), a special analysis of hydrological parameters has been proposed.

Estimation of nutrient loads with the use of mass-balance and modelling approaches on the Wełna River catchment example (central Poland).

Nitrogen and phosphorus budgeting is considered to be a key tool for policy makers and stakeholders when dealing with nutrient contamination issues, however no unified method has been employed in countries affected by this eutrophication problem. The current study offers a detailed insight into the estimations of nutrient loads and their distribution between different sources for a middle-sized agricultural catchment, with the use of two approaches: mass balance (static) and modelling (dynamic). Both methods revealed similar contributions of analysed nutrient sources, although the final estimates in the chosen calculation profile were divergent due to the various reasons related to the methods' specificity.

Biomass Production Potential in a River under Climate Change Scenarios.

Excessive production of biomass, in times of intensification of agriculture and climate change, is again becoming one of the biggest environmental issues. Identification of sources and effects of this phenomenon in a river catchment in the space-time continuum has been supported by advanced environmental modules combined on a digital platform (Macromodel DNS/SWAT). This tool enabled the simulation of nutrient loads and chlorophyll "a" for the Nielba River catchment (central-western Poland) for the biomass production potential (defined here as a TN:TP ratio) analysis.

Climate change impacts on contaminant loads delivered with sediment yields from different land use types in a Carpathian basin.

Soil runoff and sediment transport are considered as an important vector for particle-bound contaminant transfer from source to receiving waters. Under changing climate conditions and rapid basin development, identification of sediment origins is critical for planning further action to reduce erosion effects, and further pollution to surface waters. The goal of this study was to distinguish sediment sources in a Carpathian basin (Wolnica River, southern Poland) and to perform source-oriented contaminant load estimations.

A macromodel dns/swat dataset for the sediment yield analysis in the raba river basin (Carpathian mts.).

A database has been created as a result of the Raba River basin (Carpathian Mts., Poland) mapping/projection in the Macromodel DNS/SWAT. The sediment yield simulations (SYLD) in each of the 36 designated sub-basins have been performed, taking also into account seasonal variability.

Soil and water assessment tool model calibration results for different catchment sizes in poland.

The watershed model SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) can be used to implement the requirements of international agreements that Poland has ratified. Among these requirements are the establishment of catchment-based, rather than administrative-based, management plans and spatial information systems. Furthermore, Polish law requires that management of water resources be based on catchment systems.