Long-term changes of Lake Constance with special regard to the climate impact

摘要

To assess the regional consequences of climate changes for water resource management in Southern Germany, the framework project KLIWA (www.kliwa.de) was initiated in 1998. In a subproject focussing on. Lake Constance, longterm water quality and ecosystem monitoring data were analysed. Many man-made signals can be identified in these time series, such as the dominant influence of trophic changes (GUDE et al. 1998). Some processes, such as heat exchange, vertical mixing, and stratification, are closely related to meteorology and therefore show an obvious relation to the observed warming trend. In addition, the water level of Lake Constance exhibits marked changes in the recent decades, part of which can be attributed to altered meteorological conditions. Various analyses have been carried out to study the impact of climatic changes on Lake Constance and other European lakes (DOKULIL et al. 2006, LIVINGSTONE 1997, 2003, STRAILE et al. 2003, JANKOWSKI et al. 2006). Numerical models can help to interpret the hydrological, thermal, and hydrodynamic changes and may serve to estimate possible future events.