Climate Variability and Change—Hydrological Impacts (Proceedings of the Fifth FRIEND World Conference held at Havana, Cuba, November 2006), IAHS Publ. 308, 2006, 508–513.

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Changes in runoff regimes in small catchments in Central Europe: Are there any?

LADISLAV HOLKO¹, ANDREAS HERRMANN² & ALENA KULASOVÁ³

1 Institute of Hydrology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Ondrašovecká 16, 031 05 Liptovský Mikuláš, Slovakia

holko@uh.savba.sk

2 Institute of Geoecology, Department of Hydrology and Landscape Ecology, Technical University Braunschweig, Langer Kamp 19c, D-38106 Braunschweig, Germany

3 Czech Hydrometeorological Institute, Na Šabatce 17, Praha 4, Czech Republic

Abstract The objective of this paper is to explore what measured data in selected small, relatively undisturbed European catchments tell us about the frequency of floods over the past four decades. Daily discharge data from three mountain catchments in Germany, the Czech Republic and Slovakia from 1962 to 2001 was analysed. The analysis focused on trends in mean annual runoff, the seasonal distribution of runoff, maximum annual runoff, and the occurrence of high and low flows. The study did not confirm the hypothesis that the frequency of high flows is increasing. Distinct changes were only related to the seasonality of maximum annual runoff and the number of runoff events and dry periods in summer months.

Key words frequency of floods; trends in runoff regime; small catchments

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