engleski

Climate and land use changes impacts on small catchment areas

Considering hydrological and environmental processes, small catchment areas are very vulnerable. Their size, shape and land use characteristics as well as topographical features have strong influence on hydrological regime. This paper deals with these problems on one smaller catchment area in Croatia: Karašica-Vučica catchment, part of the Danube water basin. The total catchment area is 234.000 ha, the hilly part has 70.000 ha and the lowland part has 164.000 ha which is basically agricultural area. The altitude is between 85 and 953 m a.s.l. The watercourse network consists of natural rivers and artificial canals as part of surface drainage system. In the last hundred years, drainage system has been developing for flood protection. The natural watercourses have maximum discharges in spring and winter time and minimum in vegetation period. This hydrological regime is very unsuitable for irrigation implementation which becomes necessity for stable agricultural production. The annual precipitation in the period between 1981 and 2014 is 797 mm, without significant change, but its distribution has been changing. The mean annual air temperature in the same period is 11, 25mm but it shows more significant change of +0.31 oC/10 years. Analysis of catchment water balance and its change in the last thirty years will be presented, together with pressures on it. River discharges, ground water fluctuation, precipitation and meteorological data will be analysed for the period between 1980 and 2013. In this period few extreme droughts have occurred, in 2000 and 2003, causing damages in agriculture and the environment as well. The climate and anthropogenic influences on the water balance of the small catchment area are present and this paper will show how significant they are.

Hydrological regime ; climate change ; land use

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