Kundzewicz Zbigniew

Poznań University of Life Sciences · Department of Environmental Engineering and Mechanical Engineering

Glacierised river catchments are highly sensitive to climate change, while large populations may depend on their water resources. The irrigation agriculture and the communities along the Tarim River, NW China, strongly depend on the discharge from the glacierised catchments surrounding the Taklamakan Desert. While recent increasing discharge has be...

The hypothesis of this study was one of existence of spatially organized links between the time series of river runoff and climate variability indices, describing the oscillations in the atmosphere–ocean system: ENSO (El Niño–Southern Oscillation), PDO (Pacific Decadal Oscillation), AMO (Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation), and NAO (North Atlantic O...

Two consecutive dry years, 2018 and 2019, a warm winter in 2019/20, and a very dry spring in 2020 led to the development of severe drought in Poland. In this paper, changes in the Standardized Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) for the interval from 1971 to the end of May 2020 are examined. The values of SPEI (based on 12, 24 and 30 mont...

It is common knowledge that increasing CO2 concentration plays a major role in enhancement of the greenhouse effect and contributes to global warming. The purpose of this study is to complement the conventional and established theory that increased CO2 concentration due to human emissions causes an increase of temperature, by considering the revers...

Ecological restoration of degraded riparian Tugai forests is a key driver to combat desertification in arid regions. Previous studies have focused mainly on changes in groundwater as the underlying mechanisms of Tugai forest’s decline. We evaluated species composition and diversity of Tugai forest and their relationship to groundwater, soil salinit...

Over the last decades, the damage caused by weather events has increased dramatically and ubiquitously. In Europe, weather catastrophes constitute a growing burden on national economies and insurance companies, not least because of the costs of precautionary measures. For a long time, the insurance sector has flagged that weather disasters are on t...

Damage caused by floods has generally increased in Europe over the decades, and reducing the flood risk has become a recognised priority throughout the continent. Floods constitute a burden on the economies of European countries and insurance companies, not only because of the damage they cause but also because of the costs of structural flood defe...

As flood impacts are increasing in large parts of the world, understanding the primary drivers of changes in risk is essential for effective adaptation. To gain more knowledge on the basis of empirical case studies, we analyze eight paired floods, i.e. consecutive flood events that occurred in the same region, with the second flood causing signific...

Despite costly flood risk reduction efforts, material damage and death toll caused by river floods continue to be high in Europe. In the present review paper, after outlining a process-based perspective, we examine observed and projected changes in flood hazard. Spatial and temporal variability of large floods is analyzed, based on a time series of...

The present paper examines variability of characteristics of snow cover (snow cover depth, number of days with snow cover and dates of beginning and end of snow cover) in Poland. The study makes use of a set of 43 long time series of observation records from the stations in Poland, from 1952 to 2013. To describe temporal changes in snow cover chara...

European countries face increasing flood risks because of urbanization, increase of exposure and damage potential, and the effects of climate change. In literature and in practice, it is argued that a diversification of strategies for flood risk management (FRM), including flood risk prevention (through proactive spatial planning), flood defense, f...

Although in recent years sampling approaches have been more widely used than optimization algorithms to find parameters of conceptual rainfall–runoff models, the difficulty of calibration of such models remains disputed. The problem of finding a set of optimal parameters of conceptual rainfall–runoff models is differently interpreted in various stu...

The history of floods on the Upper River Vistula in Poland is presented. Information on floods in the pre-instrumental period is derived from documentary sources. It is only since the re-establishment of Polish independence in 1945 that instrumental data make it possible to analyse floods on relatively homogeneous, uniform and gap-free observationa...

In this study, we apply a previously calibrated SWAT model of the Vistula and Odra basins in order to assess hydrological impacts of climate change in the Upper Vistula Basin. Raw projections from an ensemble of nine EUR-11 CORDEX climate model runs (precipitation and minimum and maximum temperatures) assuming an intermediate greenhouse gas emissio...

Risks of climate change impacts on water and land have affected natural and human systems and are projected to increase significantly with increasing atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. There are key risks, spanning sectors, and regions. We can adapt to climate change impacts or mitigate the climate change. Prospects for climate-resilient su...

In recent years, an expansion of irrigated agriculture and rapid population growth have threatened the Tarim River basin's natural ecosystems and caused water shortages. Improving the water resources management in the basin requires accurate seasonal precipitation forecasts. Based on previous research, possible predictors of precipitation were sele...

The presented paper examines variability of characteristics of snow cover (snow cover depth, number of days with snow cover and dates of beginning and end of snow cover) and frost depth in Potsdam. The study makes use of a unique long time series of data from the secular meteorological station in Potsdam (Germany), covering the time interval from 1...

A review of findings contained in the IPCC AR5 Synthesis Report, of particular relevance to the Polish audience, is offered. Polish perspectives on coal-climate nexus are discussed in a broader, universal, context. Positive examples of climate policies in other countries are provided. The title of this paper refers to a public conference organized...

It is widely being recognized that climate change is happening. Anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases cause warming of the atmosphere and oceans. The resulting changes in the climate system and water cycle are unequivocal and manifest themselves in sea level rise and an increasing likelihood of extreme weather worldwide, evidenced by the incr...

On the eve of my retirement as co-editor of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS) and Hydrological Sciences Journal (HSJ), I would like to take the opportunity to address the HSJ audience with some reflections about the journal and the publishing system.

Flooding is the most destructive natural hazard in the Baltic Sea Basin in general and in Poland in particular. The notion includes floods from rivers and mountain torrents, as well as floods from sea surges in coastal areas, and floods from sewage systems. There have been several large floods in Poland in the last century and in recent decades, wi...

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an international body of intergovernmental nature. The initial task for the IPCC as outlined in the UN General Assembly Resolution 43/53 of 6 December 1988, endorsing establishing of the IPCC, was to prepare a comprehensive review and recommendations with respect to the state of knowledge of t...

The present contribution reviews a suite of grand challenges related to assessment of climate change impacts on freshwater resources. Among them are challenges related to the detection and attribution of changes in observed records, projections for the future, changes in hydrologic extremes (floods and droughts), assessing and reducing uncertainty,...

Floods in the northern foreland of the Tatra Mountains considerably contribute to the total flood damage in Poland. Therefore, the question whether the magnitude and frequency of floods have changed in this region is of high interest. This study aims at investigating the inter-decadal variability of magnitude, frequency and seasonality of floods si...

There have been many events connected with damaging abundance of water in Polish towns in recent decades. Some of them have been caused by flood waves on rivers passing through towns. Others have been caused by intense precipitation overwhelming the capacity of storm sewer systems. A brief review of the topical area of urban floods in Poland in las...

The Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is now available. It provides policymakers with an assessment of information on climate change, its impacts and possible response options (adaptation and mitigation). Summaries for policymakers of three reports of IPCC working groups and of the Synthesis Repor...

This modelling study demonstrates at what level of global mean temperature rise (ΔTg) regions will be exposed to significant decreases of freshwater availability and changes to terrestrial ecosystems. Projections are based on a new, consistent set of 152 climate scenarios (eight ΔTg trajectories reaching 1.5–5 ° C above pre-industrial levels by 210...

The effect of using two distributed hydrological models with different degrees of spatial aggregation on the assessment of climate change impact on river runoff was investigated. Analyses were conducted in the Narew River basin situated in northeast Poland using a global hydrological model (WaterGAP) and a catchment-scale hydrological model (SWAT)....

Water is crucial for the process of transformation of solar energy into organic matter and plant growth and development. It determines the level of agricultural production - about 85% of the global water footprint is related to food. Yet, more than 850 million people in the world are still undernourished. Physical basis of water cycling in agricult...

The present paper introduces the topical area of the Polish-Swiss research project FLORIST (Flood risk on the northern foothills of the Tatra Mountains), informs on its objectives, and reports on initial results. The Tatra Mountains are the area of the highest precipitation in Poland and largely contribute to flood generation. The project is focuse...

According to physical laws, the water-holding capacity of the atmosphere and hence the potential for intense precipitation increases with warming. Since a robust warming signal and a number of large rain-caused floods have been observed recently, it is of paramount importance to examine whether there has been an increasing trend in intense precipit...

The EU’s 2020 vision aims to deliver a bright future for Europe. This can only be achieved in the context of a sustainable, healthy environment. The Advisory Group on Environment (including climate change) sees the need to achieve a new balance between continued support for disciplinary research while at the same time fostering inter-disciplinary a...

Citation Kundzewicz, Z. W. & Stakhiv, E. Z. (2010) Are climate models “ready for prime time” in water resources management applications, or is more research needed? Editorial. Hydrol. Sci. J.55(7), 1085–1089.

The twentieth century was a period of considerable climatic and nonclimatic change. The atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases increased significantly, due to increased burning of fossil fuels and land-use changes that reduce carbon sequestration. The long carbon dioxide record from Mauna Loa illustrates the man-caused enhancement of the “gr...

This is the 3rd study to be published in the CEPS Policy Brief series from ongoing research being carried out for the EU-funded ADAM project (ADaptation And Mitigation strategies: supporting European climate policy). Following an introduction to the aims and objectives of the ADAM project, section 2 sets out the rationales for public policy related...

The distribution of precipitation over China is very uneven in space and time. During the flood season (of the summer monsoon, usually extending from May to October), precipitation may make up three-quarters or more of the annual total. Floods frequently devastate riparian parts of the more humid east and south of China, but they also severely hit...

This paper examines temperature-related climate extremes in the unique long-term gap-free record at the Secular Meteorological Station in Potsdam. Increasing tendencies in daily minimum temperature in winter and daily maximum temperature in summer, as well as monthly means of daily minimum temperatures in winter months and of daily maximum temperat...

In the basins of large international rivers of central Europe – the Labe/Elbe (drainage basin in Czech Republic and Germany), the Odra/Oder (drainage basin in Czech Republic, Poland and Germany) and the Vistula (most of drainage basin in Poland, with basins of tributaries located also in Slovakia, Ukraine and Belarus) – water resources are rather s...

One gathers hydrological data in order to assess the water resources and to understand the variables characterizing hydrological processes (fluxes) and the states (storages) of hydrological systems (drainage basins). It is likely that most catchments of the world are ungauged or poorly gauged—even available estimates of water budgets for continents...

Historical hydrology can be defined as a research field occupying the interface between hydrology and history, with the objectives: to reconstruct temporal and spatial patterns of river flow and, in particular, extreme events (floods, ice phenomena, hydrological droughts) mainly for the period prior to the creation of national hydrological networks...

The history of floods on the River Vistula in Poland, covering the period from AD 988 to the present is reviewed. General information is given on the River Vistula, its basin and its floods, for the Upper, Middle, Lower Vistula and the Vistula Delta. Information on floods in the pre-instrumental period is derived from documentary sources. It is onl...

A considerable increase in flood damage has been observed worldwide, with mean annual values reaching tens of billions of US$ and still considerable number of fatalities. Most dramatic floods occur overseas (in particular in Asia – China, India, and Bangladesh), but in the last decade, floods have severely hit large parts of the European continent.

A b s t r a c t Several destructive floods have occurred in the last decade in Europe, caus-ing record high material damage. The question of detection and attribution of changes in various flood-related indices attracts increasing interest. Among the mechanisms that can impact flood risk are changes in socio-economic systems, which influence terres...

The full text of this Editorial is at http://www.cig.ensmp.fr/~iahs/hsj/496/49600.htm

The full text is available at http://www.cig.ensmp.fr/~iahs/hsj/493/49350.htm

Since the World Climate Change Conference held in the autumn of 2003 in Moscow, Russian Federation, the fate of international climate policy architecture designed around the Kyoto Protocol hangs in the balance. After the withdrawal of the USA from the Kyoto Protocol, the condition of its ratification cannot be met without the Russian Federation. Th...

In this article, flood protection is considered in the context of sustainability. On the one hand, floods destroy human heritage and jeopardize sustainable development, which can be defined as “non-decreasing quality of life.” On the other hand, following the most common interpretation of sustainable development, one should not choose flood protect...

In Risk, Reliability, Uncertainty and Robustness of Water Resources Systems, thirty-five leading scientists provide state-of-the-art reviews of topical areas of research on water resources systems, including aspects of extreme hydrological events: floods and droughts, water quantity and quality, dams, reservoirs and hydraulic structures, evaluating...

Coping with hydrological extremes, floods, and droughts has been a major concern since the dawn of human civilization. Freshwater, a necessary condition of life and a raw material used in very high volumes in virtually every human activity, is becoming increasingly scarce. Water use has risen considerably in the last hundred years at a pace exceedi...

The significance of water availability for sustainable development is discussed. A review of water-related areas of concern in Agenda 21, the blueprint for sustainability, is offered, with particular reference to its Chapter 18 devoted to freshwater resources. The problems of water resources of vulnerable areas are tackled for the examples of arid...

One of the most pernicious plagues that the human kind has always suffered is drought; that is, prolonged freshwater deficit. A combination of drought, or a sequence of droughts, and human activities may lead to deserti­ fication of vulnerable areas whereby soil and bio-productive resources are degraded. Droughts and desertification have always bee...

One of the most pronounced features of water resources in Poland is the low per capita water availability. As the water demand is likely to grow in the future, the water deficit may become an increasingly active barrier to economic development at national and, in particular, regional levels. This has been indicated in a number of recent studies on...

The problem of multiple criteria for evaluation of water resource systems is addressed. Alternative criteria for quantifying various reliability aspects like recurrence, duration, severity and conse­ quences of the non-satisfactory system performance are reviewed. The notions of uncertainty and non-stationarity are also discussed. They pertain to b...

Detection of discordant groundwater quality observations is of primary importance. Because of the large amount of data to be analysed, methods of plausibility analysis need to be simple and not too time-consuming. Two geostatistical methods were studied, which allow the identification of outlying data points based on the pattern present in the rema...

The alternative concepts of reliability and resilience criteria of evaluation of water-resource systems are reviewed. The potential of the renewal theory is illustrated that covers many alternative criteria and suggests relations between them.

A general closed form expression for the Rth cumulant of the unsteady flow due to an upstream impulse input in a semi-infinite channel is derived by (a) reducing the recurrence relationship between successive cumulants to a recurrence relationship between the set of parameters γ(R, i) characterizing the ratio of successive terms in the series for t...

The impact of systems science on hydrology and water resources research is analysed. All three recognized epochs of the development of system science contain concepts and elements useful in hydrological sciences. The review of some hydrological applications is presented and the future potential is indicated. The platforms of communication between t...

Remarks on the progress of scientific hydrology in the coming decades are formulated. This is accomplished both by extrapolating recent trends in research into hydrology and by isolating the present barriers to progress that are likely to remain at the centre of interest of hydrological sciences. L'hydrologie de demain RESUME Dans cet article on pr...

The structural theory of linear systems, which allows the non-homogeneous initial and boundary conditions to be expressed as part of a generalised system input, is applied to the problem of linear flood routing. The standardising functions needed to accomplish this are derived for three methods of lumped hydrologic flood routing (lag and route, Mus...

In this paper different methods of hydrodynamic determination of parameters of approximate hydraulic and hydrological flood routing models are analysed and com­ pared with respect to severity of assumptions and the final equations for parameters. It is shown that the values of parameters obtained by several methods of physical interpretation are cl...