Joris Eekhout

Spanish National Research Council | CSIC · Department of Soil and Water Conservation and Organic Waste Management

Climate change is expected to cause important changes in precipitation patterns in Iran until the end of 21st century. This study aims at evaluating projections of climate change over Iran by using five climate model outputs (including ACCESS‐ESM1‐5, BCC‐CSM2‐MR, CanESM5, CMCC‐ESM2 and MRI‐ESM2‐0) of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase...

New policy developments have emerged about soil conservation after 2020. The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) 2023–2027, the proposal for a Soil Monitoring Law, and the mission ‘A Soil Deal for Europe’ have shaped a new policy framework at the EU level, which requires updated assessments on soil erosion and land degradation. The EU Soil Observatory...

To get a full understanding of the impacts of global change on the catchment-scale sediment balance, models are needed that combine hillslope soil erosion processes with channel morphodynamics. Here we present a modification to the SPHY-MMF model that includes a novel channel morphodynamics module, which determines erosion and deposition in rills a...

Soil erosion is a natural process that can be accelerated by natural and anthropogenic disturbances and lead to land degradation and geomorphological changes. Analyzing soil erosion and catchment sediment dynamics is a complex process. In such cases, simplified methods can be applied to analyze soil erosion and sediment connectivity variations and...

Floods cause severe natural disasters over the world generating property and infrastructures damages, poverty and loss of human life, among others. Mediterranean watersheds are especially sensible to floods due to their typical drainage basin features (steep slopes, short concentration times, complex orography, etc.) and the high rainfall intensity...

Previous research suggests that channels have a significant contribution to the total sediment balance in large catchments. Channels are also very sensitive to changes in land use and management, with implications for channel morphodynamics and the quantity of sediments and nutrients flowing through the system. Here we present a new channel module...

Understanding erosion and sedimentation processes along the drainage network, from hillslopes to rivers and reservoirs, is essential for water resources management and river restoration. This work proposes a novel dynamic evaluation of landscape factor from modeled runoff and erosion rates from physically-based distributed hydrological modelling, t...

Climate change is expected to lead to increased soil erosion in many locations worldwide affecting ecosystem services and human well-being. Through a systematic review of 224 modelling studies, we provide a global assessment of the impact of climate change on soil erosion and the adaptation potential through land use change and soil conservation. W...

Worldwide, Mediterranean cropping systems face the complex challenge of producing enough high-quality food while preserving the quantity and quality of scarce water for people and agriculture in the context of climate change. While good management of nitrogen (N) is paramount to achieving this objective, the efficient strategies developed for tempe...

This research studies the effect of climate change on the hydrological behavior of two semi-arid basins. For this purpose, the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model was used with the simulation of two future climate change scenarios, one Representative Concentration Pathway moderate (RCP 4.5) and the other extreme (RCP 8.5). Three future peri...

The impact of climate change on future soil loss is commonly assessed with soil erosion models, which are suggested to be an important source of uncertainty. Here we present a novel soil erosion model ensemble to assess model uncertainty in climate change impact assessments. The model en semble consisted of five continuous process‐based soil erosio...

p>In hydromorphologically-degraded lowland streams, large-wood reintroductions are often used to reestablish instream physical structure, which might also increase biodiversity. However, the success rate of this approach varies in terms of positive macroinvertebrate assemblage responses. To obtain better insight into macroinvertebrate–wood relation...

The use of check-dams in mountain environments to regulate fluxes of water and sediments is widely applied across Mediterranean mountains. Besides the use of “grey infrastructures” such as check-dams, other restoration and hydrological control measures rely more on the use of “green infrastructures” or “nature-based solutions” (e.g. reforestation,...

The Mediterranean region has been identified as one of the most affected global hot-spots for climate change, which is already manifested by faster increasing temperatures than the global mean and significant decreases in annual precipitation. Besides, over the past decades, important land cover changes have occurred, such as reforestation, agricul...

Placement of wood in streams has become a common method to increase ecological value in river and stream restoration and is widely used in natural environments. Water managers, however, are often hesitant to introduce wood in channels that drain agricultural and urban areas because of backwater effect concerns. This study aims to better understand...

Dimensionless morphological ratios (DMR) generally are used in systemic proposals for stream classification and river restoration projects. Often, such morphometric parameters, including field data from channel cross sections, develop into a template for a given geomorphic reference site. In this study, high-resolution Digital Terrain Models (HRDTM...

Climate models project increased extreme precipitation for the coming decades, which may lead to higher soil erosion in many locations worldwide. Different soil erosion model concepts are used to assess the impact of climate change on soil erosion at large spatial scales, including models forced by precipitation and by runoff. However, there is lit...

This chapter examines the scientific understanding of how climate change impacts land degradation, and vice versa, with a focus on non-drylands. Land degradation of drylands is covered in Chapter 3. After providing definitions and the context (Section 4.1) we proceed with a theoretical explanation of the different processes of land degradation and...

A set of dimensionless morphological ratios are commonly used as a basis for studies of stream stability and natural channel restoration. Often, such ratios have been obtained from morphometric measurements made in the field and developed into a template for a given geomorphic reference site. The main objective of the present study is to analyze th...

A set of dimensionless morphological ratios are commonly used as a basis for studies of stream stability and natural channel restoration. Often, such ratios have been obtained from morphometric measurements made in the field and developed into a template for a given geomorphic reference site. In this study, high resolution aerial photographs from 2...

Lithological and aridity conditions in the central area of the Ebro Basin favour the abundance of intermittent and ephemeral rivers. These rivers suffer important environmental problems but lack specific scientific studies, and in most cases they are not even considered water bodies in their management. A methodological proposal is launched combini...

Climate change will most likely cause an increase of extreme precipitation and consequently an increase of soil erosion in many locations worldwide. In most cases, climate model output is used to assess the impact of climate change on soil erosion, however, there is little knowledge of the implications of bias‐correction methods and climate model e...

An increase in extreme precipitation is projected for many areas worldwide in the coming decades. To assess the impact of increased precipitation intensity on water security, we applied a regional-scale hydrological and soil erosion model, forced with regional climate model projections. We specifically considered the impact of climate change on the...

Climate change will strongly affect essential ecosystem services, like the provision of freshwater, food production, soil erosion and flood control. Sustainable Land Management (SLM) practices are increasingly promoted to contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation, but there is lack of evidence at scales most relevant for policymaking....

Assessing the impacts of environmental change on soil erosion and sediment yield at the large catchment scale remains one of the main challenges in soil erosion modelling studies. Here, we present a process-based soil erosion model, based on the integration of the Morgan–Morgan–Finney erosion model in a daily based hydrological model. The model ove...

An increase of extreme precipitation is projected for many areas worldwide in the coming decades. To assess the impact of increased precipitation intensity on water security, we applied a regional scale hydrological and soil erosion model, forced with Regional Climate Model projections. We specifically considered the impact of climate change on the...

Assessing the impacts of environmental change on soil erosion and sediment yield at the large catchment scale remains one of the main challenges in soil erosion modelling studies. Here, we present a process-based soil erosion model, based on the integration of the Morgan-Morgan-Finney erosion model in a daily-based hydrological model. The model ove...

Leaves are the major component of terrestrial litter input into aquatic systems. Leaves are distributed by the flow, accumulate in low flow areas and form patches. In natural streams, stable leaf patches form around complex structures, such as large woody debris. Until now, little is known about flow conditions under which leaf patches persist. Thi...

The parameterization of crop coefficients (kc) is critical for determining a water balance. We used satellite-based and literature-based methods to derive kc values for a distributed hydrologic model. We evaluated the impact of different kc parametrization methods on the water balance and simulated hydrologic response at the basin and sub-basin sca...

Stream restoration efforts often aim at creating new unconstrained meandering channels without weirs and bank revetments. In reconstructed streams, the initial morphological response of the new streams is often rapid, until a dynamic equilibrium is reached. Here we report on a chute cutoff that occurred within 3 months after realization of a stream...

With the aim to establish and understand morphological changes in response to channel reconstruction, a detailed monitoring plan was implemented in a lowland stream called Lunterse Beek, located in the Netherlands. Over a period of almost 2 years, the monitoring programme included serial morphological surveys, continuous discharge and water level m...

Large-scale channelisation in the first half of the 20th century caused degradation of the biodiversity in lowland streams in the Netherlands. More than 25 years ago, the Dutch water boards started restoring the degraded lowland streams, which is commonly referred to as stream restoration. Until recently, bank erosion and other changes to the strea...

Al 25 jaar voeren waterbeheerders projecten uit waarbij laglandbeken een kronkelende loop terugkrijgen. Maar wat gebeurt er precies met de vorm van zo'n beek na uitvoering van het project? Hoe lang duurt de aanpassingsperiode en welke factoren hebben invloed? De conclusies van een onderzoek in de Lunterse Beek.

In de beek de Hooge Raam is een beekherstelproject gekoppeld aan een uniek veldexperiment. Het doel van het veldexperiment was om over een periode van drie jaar de temporele morfodynamiek te volgen van een rechte beekloop met een breed en ondiep dwarsprofiel. Ongeveer 8 maanden na aanleg zijn alternerende banken ontstaan. In eerste instantie namen...

In de eerste helft van de 20ste eeuw zijn veel laaglandbeken in Nederland gekanaliseerd. Dit heeft vaak geleid tot grote veranderingen in de hydrologie en morfologie van beken, met als gevolg een sterke achteruitgang van de bijbehorende karakteristieke aquatische en terrestrische ecosystemen. In de afgelopen 25 jaar zijn de Nederlandse waterschappe...

[1] Alternate bars in rivers and streams develop as a result of differences in length scales involved in the adjustment of flow and sediment transport to irregularities of the bed. The amount of field evidence supporting theoretical insights is highly limited. Here, we present results from a large-scale field experiment in a 600 m long straight rea...

With the aim to establish and understand morphological changes in response to stream restoration measures, a detailed monitoring plan was implemented in a lowland stream called Lunterse Beek, located in the Netherlands. Over a period of 1.5 yr, the monitoring included serial morphological surveys, continuous discharge and water level measurements a...

In analytical and numerical models of river meandering, initiation of meandering typically occurs uniformly along the streamwise coordinate in the channel. Based on a historical analysis of the Nierskanaal, here we show how and under which circumstances meandering has initiated in isolated sections of a channel. The Nierskanaal was constructed by t...

Aan het eind van de 18de eeuw is tussen de rivieren de Niers in Duitsland en de Maas in Nederland het Geldernsch-Nierskanaal gegraven, om piekafvoeren in het benedenstroomse deel van de Niers af te vlakken. Het Duitse deel van het kanaal is in de loop van de tijd gekanaliseerd gebleven door oeverbeschoeiing. Opvallend is dat het Nederlandse deel, d...

Within the Dutch research project ’Valley wide meander restoration’ six restored streams will be monitored over a 2-year period. The monitoring program aims at understanding initial morphological processes and the associated ecological developments. The present study focuses on the morphodynamic developments that took place after the completion of...

Het doel van het project Beekdalbreed Hermeanderen was om in de praktijk in beekherstelprojecten een gedempt afvoer- en een stabiel en gevarieerd habitatpatroon te realiseren door morfologische en hydrologische maatregelen in samenhang uit te voeren. In 6 beekdalbreed uitgevoerde hermeanderingsprojecten en in 7 projecten, waarbij dood hout is ingeb...

Around 1770, a straight artificial canal (Gelderns-Nierskanaal) has been constructed between the River Niers and the River Meuse, crossing the border between Germany and the Netherlands, with the purpose of reducing flood risk in the downstream reaches of the River Niers. Whereas the German part of the canal is kept straight throughout time, the Du...

A lot of processes within process-based models, like Unibest-TC, are still not well understood. Consequently, numerous experiments are carried out to get more insight in these processes. As part of the European HYDRALAB-III project, experiments were carried out in the Großen Wellenkanal (GWK) of the Forschungszentrum Küste in Hannover, Germany. Dat...