25th General Assembly of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics, Melbourne, Avustralya, 28 Haziran - 07 Temmuz 2011, cilt.348, ss.151-153, (Tam Metin Bildiri)
In this study, climate scenarios (dry, medium and wet) have been used to characterize changing climatic and flow conditions for the period 2050-2054 in the 4th order River Weisse Elster in Germany. Present and future periods of nitrogen turnover were simulated with the WASPS river water quality model. Results revealed that, for a dry climate scenario, the mean denitrification rate was 71% higher during summer (low flow period between 2050 and 2054) and 51% higher during winter (high flow period) compared to the reference period. In the 42-km study reach, N-retention through denitrification amounted to 5.1% of the upper boundary N load during summer low flow conditions during the reference period. For the future dry climate scenario, this value increased by up to 10.2%. In our case study, the investigated climate scenarios showed that future discharge changes may have a larger impact on denitrification rates than future temperature changes.