Standortsfaktor Wasserhaushalt im Klimawandel WHH-KW (Projekt C 42)

The project aims at describing water budget estimates in the field of site classification and site mapping with the help of physically based hydrological models. Water budgets will be addressed in a high spatial resolution and dynamically in order to cope with climate change. The evaluation of extensively available indicators describing drought and water logging (lack of oxygen) will be used to assess the c ultivation risk of important tree species under present and potential future climate conditions and therefore serves a s a base for risk - averse forestry.

The project focuses on modelling the water budget of forest stands today and in the future. Stand characteristics of the main forest tree species (spruce, pine, beech, oak) and common mixtures are used for water budget modeling. The modelling frame will be adapted to the respective regional site classification systems of the project partners. Complementary to the work of the forest research institutes, the University of Hamburg will generate regionalized daily datasets of climate variables driving the water budget models (temperature, precipitation, global radiation, wind speed, relative humidity). Sensitivity analyses allow to examine the effect s of different methodical setups for regional climate modeling on the results of the water budget modelling. The outcome of the project will be climate sensitive estimates of site water budget s with respect to ma j or tree species and the site classification systems of the participating federal states. These data may serve for the assessment of the suitability for cultivation of major tree species.