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Detection and attribution of lake-level dynamics in north-eastern central Europe in recent decades

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Abstract

The lake-rich glacial landscapes of north-eastern central Europe play an important role in the preservation and use of water resources, including protection of biodiversity, carbon storage and promotion of tourism. With a view to the last c. 20 years and the future, a regional ‘syndrome of water shortage’ has been frequently stated, which impairs particularly peatlands, flowing waters and lakes. Accordingly, the overall question addressed in this study is: What can regional and local gauging records tell us about decadal hydrological changes of lakes and their catchments? In the study area, most of the gauging records of lakes begin only in the late 1990s. Forty-five lake-level records were analysed by hierarchical agglomerative clustering, looking for the trend in the 1999–2008 time window. The analyses show that lake levels had varying dynamics, namely a negative, unclear or even a positive trend. The proportional shares of these three groups are 23 (51 %) to 15 (34 %) to 7 lakes (15 %), respectively. In group 1, largely groundwater-fed lakes, lake-level changes depend on groundwater-level changes. These are controlled by decreasing groundwater recharge in the catchments, which are caused by specific seasonal weather conditions in the observation period, and the impact of the dominating pine forests, which consume high quantities of water. In group 2, mainly stream lakes, direct human impact drives the lake levels through the management of weirs and ground sills. Nearly all lakes in group 3, consisting of river, stream and spring lakes, were subject to impoundment measures initiated by local rewetting projects. Thus, an important finding with respect to the impact of climate and land use is the fact that the (‘natural’) lakes of the region, primarily fed by groundwater and precipitation, show a predominantly negative lake-level trend in the period studied. Beyond the 10-year-time window analysed, further regional data show that periodic lake-level fluctuations with amplitudes of c. 1–2(–3) m are characteristic for regional groundwater-fed lakes.

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Acknowledgments

This research was performed within the projects TERENO and ICLEA of the Helmholtz Association. Therefore, the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences (Potsdam) provided much help. Furthermore, we are grateful to the Müritz National Park authority, namely J. Kobel and M. Schwabe (both Hohenzieritz), for their generous support. Sincere thanks go to A. Pingel (State Environmental Agency Brandenburg, Potsdam) for providing the gauging data for Lake Peetschsee and to S. Germer (Potsdam) for helpful comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. Furthermore, we owe two anonymous reviewers constructive suggestions for improvements.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Telegrafenberg, 14473, Potsdam, Germany

    Knut Kaiser, Paul Jörg Koch, Peter Stüve, Janek Dreibrodt & Oliver Bens

  2. Förderverein Feldberg-Uckermärkische Seenlandschaft e.V., Am Markt 13, 17268, Templin, Germany

    Rüdiger Mauersberger

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  1. Knut Kaiser
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  2. Paul Jörg Koch
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  3. Rüdiger Mauersberger
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  4. Peter Stüve
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  5. Janek Dreibrodt
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  6. Oliver Bens
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Correspondence to Knut Kaiser.

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Editor: Juan Ignacio Lopez Moreno.

Electronic supplementary material

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10113_2014_600_MOESM1_ESM.pdf

Online Resource 1: Hydrological, geological and catchment (land cover) characteristics of the lakes analysed. In case of more than one entry in the land-cover and geology columns, the dominant portion is given at front position. In the land-cover column, the terms in brackets refer to only marginal portions. (PDF 59 kb)

10113_2014_600_MOESM2_ESM.pdf

Online Resource 2: Land use in the year 2012 in the catchment of Lake Großer Fürstenseer See (data: ATKIS topographic basis information). The geometries of both the surface and the subterranean catchment area of this lake are given according to Koch (2012). (PDF 869 kb)

10113_2014_600_MOESM3_ESM.pdf

Online Resource 3: Histogram of gauging data availability. The date from when and how many gauges operate are detailed. Note the strong increase in gauges in the late 1990s, which is congruent with the start of our 10-year-time window (1999-2008). (PDF 12 kb)

Online Resource 4: Overlay of lake-level curves for the trend groups derived by cluster analysis. (PDF 449 kb)

10113_2014_600_MOESM5_ESM.pdf

Online Resource 5: Distribution of cluster groups in the study area. The total number of lake-level time series analysed is 45. (PDF 6 kb)

10113_2014_600_MOESM6_ESM.pdf

Online Resource 6: Deviation of annual and seasonal temperature and precipitation from the mean value of the reference period 1961–1990 at Neustrelitz weather station. The lengths of the time series are 110 years (1902–2012). The data were acquired from several sources (DWD, Meteomedia, private). (PDF 23 kb)

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Kaiser, K., Koch, P.J., Mauersberger, R. et al. Detection and attribution of lake-level dynamics in north-eastern central Europe in recent decades. Reg Environ Change 14, 1587–1600 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-014-0600-5

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