Sensitivity of the river Rhine discharge to environmental change,a first tentative assessment

Changes in climatic conditions may have great impact on the distribution of available water in space and time. However the results of models that describe future climate conditions are still insufficient to be used in regional hydrological simulation studies. This article describes a first tentative estimation of the sensitivity of discharge of the river Rhine to two environmental changes. Firstly, to a change in snow covered area due to a rise of 4°C in winter temperature in the upland part (Alps) of the drainage area and, secondly, to a large land use change in the lowland area (Federal Republic of Germany/France). ‘Worst case’ scenarios for discharge of the river Rhine under warmer conditions give a reduction of 10 percent for the summer discharge at Rees (Dutch/German border). The results of the estimations indicate that the reduction of the summer discharge in a warmer world could be larger.