
María J. PoloUniversity of Córdoba | UCO · Andalusian Institute for Earth System Research
María J. Polo
PhD, Full Professor
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170
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Publications
Publications (170)
Assessing the information provided by co-produced climate services is a timely challenge given the continuously evolving scientific knowledge and its increasing translation to address societal needs. Here we propose a joint evaluation and verification framework to assess prototype services that provide seasonal forecast information based on the exp...
In this paper, the Global Surface Water Explorer (GSWE) was combined with bathymetric and historical meteorological data to quantify water balance during the period 1984–2020 in the Primera de Palos freshwater lagoon (Southwest Spain). This allowed us, through a water balance approach, to estimate all water inputs and outputs to analyse the hydrolo...
Monitoring snowmelt dynamics in mountains is crucial to understand water releases downstream. Sentinel-1 (S-1) synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) has become one of the most widely used techniques to achieve this aim due to its high frequency of acquisitions and all-weather capability. This work aims to understand the possibilities of S-1 SAR imagery to...
o Restoring forest ecosystems not only has the potential to enrich biodiversity, but also to
mitigate climate change, support climate adaptation, mitigate the effects of droughts and
floods, enhance water availability, improve water quality, reduce erosion, and lower
avalanche induction.
o Given their wide range of ecosystem services, the EGU Biodi...
Monitoring snowmelt dynamics in mountains is crucial to understand water releases downstream. Sentinel-1 (S-1) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) has become one of the most widely used techniques to achieve this aim due to its high frequency of acquisitions and all-weather capability. This work aims to understand the possibilities of S-1 SAR imagery to...
Various methods are available for assessing uncertainties in climate impact studies. Among such methods, model weighting by expert elicitation is a practical way to provide a weighted ensemble of models for specific real-world impacts. The aim is to decrease the influence of improbable models in the results and easing the decision-making process. I...
The EGU Biodiversity Task Force welcomes the ambitious targets outlined in the Nature Restoration Law that was presented by the European Commission on 22 June 2022. The Nature Restoration Law's binding targets to restore degraded terrestrial land and marine ecosystems across the EU is a positive step for biodiversity and will enable the EU to take...
Sierra NevadaSierra Nevada is the southernmost snowSnow area in Europe and its singular geographical location, together with its high altitudes, result in strong gradients of the local climateClimate and hydrology, and rich biodiversityBiodiversity. This chapter aims at providing insights into the major components of the energy and water balance in...
Reviewed: Earth Observation Science and Applications for Risk Reduction and Enhanced Resilience in Hindu Kush Himalaya Region: A Decade of Experience From SERVIR. Edited by Birendra Bajracharya, Rajesh Bahadur Thapa, and Mir A. Matin. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2021. xxxiii + 375 pp. Softcover: US$ 59.99, ISBN 978-3-030-73568-5. E-book: open acce...
Yūgen: siete viajes por Alaska. By Mario Dávalos Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Capital, 2020. 200 pp. Hardcover: RD$ 1,500.00, ISBN 978-9945-8890-5-5.
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Mario Dávalos is a multifaceted artist from the Dominican Republic. As a professional photographer, he pours his personal experiences and thoughts during his work travels to Alaska into ph...
Various methods are available for assessing uncertainties in climate impact studies. Among such methods, model weighting by expert elicitation is a practical way to provide a weighted ensemble of models for specific real-world impacts. The aim is to decrease the influence of improbable models in the results and easing the decision-making process. I...
Reviewed: Yūgen: siete viajes por Alaska. By Mario Dávalos. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Capital, 2020. 200 pp. Hardcover: RD$ 1,500.00, ISBN 978-9945-8890-5-5
A better understanding of the water and energy cycles at climate scale in the Third Pole Environment is essential for assessing and understanding the causes of changes in the cryosphere and hydrosphere in relation to changes of plateau atmosphere in the Asian monsoon system and for predicting the possible changes in water resources in South and Eas...
The main drawback of the reconstruction of high-resolution distributed global radiation (Rg) time series in mountainous semiarid environments is the common lack of station-based solar radiation registers. This work presents 19 years (2000–2018) of high-spatial-resolution (30 m) daily, monthly, and annual global radiation maps derived using the GIS-...
Widely available digital technologies are empowering citizens who are increasingly well informed and involved in numerous water, climate, and environmental challenges. Citizen science can serve many different purposes, from the “pleasure of doing science” to complementing observations, increasing scientific literacy, and supporting collaborative be...
The main drawback of the reconstruction of high resolution distributed global radiation (Rg) time series in mountainous semiarid environments is the common lack of station-based solar radiation registers. This work presents nineteen years (2000–2018) of high spatial resolution (30 m × 30 m) monthly and annual global radiation maps derived using the...
Run of river (RoR) hydropower systems, despite being one of the most cost-effective and environmentally benign energy technologies, have the disadvantage that production is not constant because it is subject to a high variability in precipitation and snow cover. In addition, the management of RoR plants has to comply with some particular operating...
The operation feasibility of small hydropower plants in mountainous sites is subjected to the run-of-river flow, which is also dependent on a high variability in precipitation and snow cover. Moreover, the management of this kind of system has to be performed with some particular operation conditions of the plant (e.g., turbine minimum and maximum...
The operation feasibility of small hydropower plants in mountainous sites is subjected to the run-of-river flow which is also depending on a high variability in precipitation and snow cover. Moreover, the management of this kind of systems has to be performed with some particular operation conditions of the plant (e.g. turbine minimum and maximum d...
Annual grasslands are an essential component of oak savanna ecosystems as the primary source of fodder for livestock and wildlife. Drought resistance adaptation has led them to complete their life cycle before serious soil and plant water deficits develop, resulting in a close link between grass phenology and soil water dynamics. In this work, thes...
Climate change is increasing the vulnerability of Mediterranean coniferous plantations. Here, we integrate a Landsat time series with a physically-based distributed hydrological model (Watershed Integrated Management in Mediterranean Environments—WiMMed) to examine spatially-explicit relationships between the mortality processes of Pinus pinaster p...
This paper is the outcome of a community initiative to identify major unsolved scientific problems in hydrology motivated by a need for stronger harmonisation of research efforts. The procedure involved a public consultation through on-line media, followed by two workshops through which a large number of potential science questions were collated, p...
This work presents the Guadalfeo Monitoring Network in Sierra Nevada (Spain), a snow monitoring network in the Guadalfeo Experimental Catchment, a semiarid area in southern Europe representative of snowpacks with highly variable dynamics on both annual and seasonal scales and significant topographic gradients. The network includes weather stations...
La gestión del agua ha evolucionado desde una planificación del agua como recurso con un objetivo único, abastecer las demandas cuantitativas, hasta una gestión integrada de cuencas que no solo incorpora criterios de calidad del recurso a los objetivos de la planificación, sino que integra la gestión del territorio, sus usos, sus componentes, el ag...
The geophysical and hydrological processes governing river flow formation exhibit persistence at several timescales, which may manifest itself with the presence of positive seasonal correlation of streamflow at several different time lags. We investigate here how persistence propagates along subsequent seasons and affects low and high flows. We def...
Remote sensing is the only feasible data source for distributed
modelling of snow in mountain regions on medium to large scales, due to the
limited access to these areas together with the lack of dense ground
monitoring stations for snow variables. Observations worldwide identify snow
cover persistence together with snowfall occurrence as the most...
This work presents the Guadalfeo Monitoring Network in Sierra Nevada (Spain), a snow monitoring network in the Guadalfeo Experimental Catchment, a semiarid area in southern Europe representative of snow packs with highly variable dynamics on both the annual and seasonal scales, and significant topographic gradients. The network includes weather sta...
Snow constitutes a key component of the water cycle, which is directly affected by changes in climate. Mountainous regions, especially those located in semiarid environments, are highly vulnerable to shifts from snowfall to rainfall. This study evaluates the influence of future climate scenarios on the snowfall regime in the Sierra Nevada Mountains...
Savannas are among the most variable, complex and extensive biomes on Earth, supporting livestock and rural livelihoods. These water-limited ecosystems are highly sensitive to changes in both climatic conditions, and land-use/management practices. The integration of Earth Observation (EO) data into process-based land models enables monitoring ecosy...
Dehesas are highly valuable agro-forestry ecosystems, widely distributed over Mediterranean-type climate areas, which play a key role in rural development, basing their productivity on a sustainable use of multiple resources (crops, livestock, wildlife, etc.). The information derived from remote sensing based models addressing ecosystem water consu...
The geophysical and hydrological processes governing river flow formation exhibit persistence at several timescales, which may manifest itself with the presence of positive seasonal correlation of streamflow at several different time lags. We investigate here how persistence propagates along subsequent seasons and affects low and high flows. We def...
Mediterranean mountainous regions constitute a climate change hotspot where snow plays a crucial role in water resources. The characteristic snow-patched distribution over these areas makes spatial resolution the limiting factor for its correct representation. This work assesses the estimation of snow cover area and the contribution of the patchy a...
We explore the memory properties of catchments for predicting the likelihood of floods based on observations of average flows in pre-flood seasons. Our approach assumes that flood formation is driven by the superimposition of short- and long-term perturbations. The former is given by the short-term meteorological forcing leading to infiltration and...
The integration of currently available satellite data into surface energy balance models can provide estimates of evapotranspiration (ET) with spatial and temporal resolutions determined by sensor characteristics. The use of data fusion techniques may increase the temporal resolution of these estimates using multiple satellites, providing a more fr...
Threshold estimation in the Peaks Over Threshold (POT) method, and the impact of the estimation method on the calculation of high return period quantiles and their uncertainty (or confidence intervals) are issues that are still unresolved. In the past, methods based on goodness-of-fit tests and EDF-statistics have yielded satisfactory results, but...
Subgrid variability introduces non-negligible scale effects on the grid-based representation of snow. This heterogeneity is even more evident in semiarid regions, where the high variability of the climate produces various accumulation melting cycles throughout the year and a large spatial heterogeneity of the snow cover. This variability in a water...
We explore the memory properties of catchments for predicting the likelihood of floods basing on observations of average flows in pre-flood seasons. Our approach assumes that flood formation is driven by the superimposition of short and long term perturbations. The former is given by the short term meteorological forcing leading to infiltration and...
In this study we quantify the evaposublimation and the energy balance of the
seasonal snowpack in the Mediterranean semiarid region of Sierra Nevada,
Spain (37° N). In these kinds of regions, the incidence of this
return of water to the atmosphere is particularly important to the hydrology
and water availability. The analysis of the evaposublimatio...
Subgrid variab ility introduces non-negligible scale effects on the GIS-based representation of snow. This heterogeneity is even more evident in semiarid regions, where the high variability of the climate produces various 10 accumulat ion melt ing cycles throughout the year and a large spatial heterogeneity of the snow cover. This variability in a...
Subgrid variability introduces non-negligible scale effects on the GIS-based representation of snow. This heterogeneity is even more evident in semiarid regions, where the high variability of the climate produces various accumulation melting cycles throughout the year and a large spatial heterogeneity of the snow cover. This variability in a waters...
We explore how to address the challenges of adaptation of water resources systems under changing conditions by supporting flexible, resilient and low-regret solutions, coupled with on-going monitoring and evaluation. This will require improved understanding of the linkages between biophysical and social aspects in order to better anticipate the pos...
In this study we quantify the evaposublimation and the energy balance of the seasonal snowpack in the Mediterranean semiarid region of Sierra Nevada, Spain (37° N). In these kinds of regions, the incidence of this return of water to the atmosphere is particularly significant to the hydrology and water availability. The analysis of the evaposublimat...
Regulation by reservoirs affects both the freshwater regime and the sediment
delivery at the area downstream, and may have a significant impact on water
quality in the final transitional water bodies. Spain is one the countries
with more water storage capacity by reservoirs in the world. Dense reservoir
networks can be found in most of the hydrogra...
How long a river remembers its past is still an open question. Perturbations
occurring in large catchments may impact the flow regime for several weeks
and months, therefore providing a physical explanation for the occasional
tendency of floods to occur in clusters. The research question explored in
this paper may be stated as follows: can higher t...
The increase in aridity and torrential events in semiarid areas predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is expected to significantly affect their hydrological response and thus their associated nonpoint source pollution and erosive dynamics. This study quantifies rainfall-runoff patterns in a 6.1-ha olive orchard microcatchment i...
The high levels of human demands of resources—from food to space and energy—are one of the main drivers of global change and are causing large negative impacts on ecosystems functioning worldwide (Vitousek et al. 1997). Global change components range from climate change to habitat destruction, species invasions, pollution and eutrophication. Althou...
River regulation by dams for both flood control and water storage has allowed to decrease both uncertainty and risks associated to extreme hydrological events. However, the alteration of the natural river flow regime and the detraction of high water volumes usually lead to significant effects downstream on the morphology, water quality, ecological...
Snow plays a crucial role in the hydrological regime in mountainous catchments, which increases in semiarid
regions, where the recurrence of drought period makes it necessary to accurate the determination of the water availability from the snowpack. Physically based approaches constitute one of the best ways to reproduce the snow dynamics over thes...
The crucial role of an accurate estimation of the snow cover fraction distribution in mountain hydrology increases in low and warm latitudes, where water scarcity makes the snowpack a fundamental resource. In Mediterranean mountain regions, the snow has a seasonal character; it is not permanent during all year or the whole cold season, which is als...
In 2013, the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS) launched the hydrological decade
2013–2022 with the theme “Panta Rhei: Change in Hydrology and Society”. The decade recognizes the
urgency of hydrological research to understand and predict the interactions of society and water, to
support sustainable water resource use under ch...
Albedo plays an important role in snow evolution modeling quantifying the amount of solar radiation absorbed and reflected by the snowpack, especially in mid-latitude regions with semiarid conditions. Satellite remote sensing is the most extensive technique to determine the variability of snow albedo over medium to large areas; however, scale effec...
The criteria used in the computation of the minimum environmental flow regime and flow cessation periods in nonpermanent rivers are often left to open criteria. This study proposes a stochastic approach for evaluating the choice of local thresholds in the characterization of minimum environmental flows through both the Monte Carlo technique and loc...