The Impact of Climate Change on the Annual Variation of Shallow Groundwater Levels in Latvia
2012
Didzis Lauva, Inga Grinfelde, Arturs Veinbergs, Kaspars Abramenko, Valdis Vircavs, Zane Dimanta, Ilva Vitola

The long-term annual regime of shallow groundwater levels is analysed in two different time periods according to the dominance of continental and oceanic air masses in Latvia. Observed and modelled long-term mean monthly groundwater levels for the reference period (1961-1990) and a future period (2070-2100) are transformed into relative values and the contours are derived for each month of the year. In both periods, the main difference between the mildly oceanic western coastal part of Latvia and the continental eastern part is the pattern of the winter regime which responds differently to snowmelt. In the coastal areas, where the degree of climatic continentality is low, groundwater levels during the winter are higher than those areas in the inland eastern part of the country. From May to September, there is only temporal difference between the groundwater levels in those two parts of Latvia. There are significant differences of relative groundwater levels between reference and future periods during the winter months


Keywords
METUL, continentality, hydrological year
DOI
10.2478/v10145-012-0007-9

Lauva, D., Grinfelde, I., Veinbergs, A., Abramenko, K., Vircavs, V., Dimanta, Z., Vitola, I. The Impact of Climate Change on the Annual Variation of Shallow Groundwater Levels in Latvia. Environmental and Climate Technologies. Vol.8, 2012, pp.41-48. ISSN 1691-5208. e-ISSN 2255-8845. Available from: doi:10.2478/v10145-012-0007-9

Publication language
English (en)
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