Mountains are called the water towers of the world. Glaciers and snowpack in these mountains store large amounts of water. During warmer periods, snow and glacier melt are important contributors to streamflow in alpine catchments. However, snow and glacier melt dynamics are different. Glaciers can for example still provide meltwater later in the season, when seasonal snow has already melted. Studies often focus on glacierized catchments or snow-dominated non-glacierized catchments or take these catchments together as melt-influenced catchments. Yet, to quantify the role of glaciers in controlling streamflow dynamics, a detailed comparison between these two types of alpine catchments is needed. By comparing the snow and glacier + snow dynamics, the role of glaciers can be isolated. How do these catchments differ, for example, in annual amounts, seasonality, high and low flows, response to dry periods, trends over time or year-to-year variability? These insights will further elucidate the role of glaciers in controlling downstream water supply and improve our understanding of streamflow changes due to climate change causing glacierized catchments to change into non-glacierized catchments.

To compare the streamflow of glacierized and snow-dominated catchments a dataset of both type of catchments needs to be assembled. The catchments need to be, apart from glacier cover, as similar as possible, so that a paired catchment approach is possible. Catchments will be selected in Austria and Switzerland, using catchment and glacier outlines and DEM. Glacierized and non-glacierized catchments will be paired based on catchment and climate characteristics. Streamflow of these paired catchments will be analyzed (different aspects possible), and methods may need to be developed to account for elevation or other differences between the catchments.

Marit van Tiel, Kerstin Stahl

Marit van Tiel marit.van.tiel@hydrology.uni-freiburg.de

GIS, large dataset, data analysis (e.g. R)

English

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