Bărbulescu (2025) Climate Change and Hydrological Processes, 2nd Edition

Identification

• Journal: Water
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-10-13
• Authors: Alina Bărbulescu
• DOI: 10.3390/w17202943

Research Groups

Department of Civil Engineering, Transilvania University of Brașov, Romania.

Short Summary

This editorial introduces and synthesizes eight diverse research papers within a special issue on climate change and hydrological processes, highlighting the dynamic nature of hydrological vulnerability, advancements in diagnostic tools, and persistent challenges in understanding and predicting water resource changes.

Objective

• To provide an overview and synthesis of current research on climate change impacts on hydrological processes, as presented in the "Climate Change and Hydrological Processes, 2nd Edition" special issue.
• To underscore the progress made in diagnosing hydrological change and identify remaining challenges and future research directions.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Ranging from local river catchments (e.g., Ialomița, Buzău, Vărbilău rivers in Romania; Godavari basin in India; Heilongjiang River Basin in China) and specific lakes (Razim–Sinoe complex, Romania) to regional (China) and large-scale teleconnections (Arctic Sea Ice-China) and global perspectives on water cycle changes.
• Temporal Scale: Studies cover historical periods (e.g., 1970–2019 for drought-flood alternations, long-term riverbed evolution), current dynamics, and future projections (e.g., using CMIP6 scenarios for streamflow forecasting).

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Ensemble boosting machine learning methods (AdaBoost, CatBoost, LightGBM, XGBoost), Random Forest, M5P, GIS-based travel-time modeling, AI-based evapotranspiration estimation models (neural networks, tree-based, kernel/support vector, hybrid models), coupled climate–hydrological models, wavelet analysis, Granger causality, singular value decomposition (SVD).
• Data sources: Historical cartography, remote sensing datasets (e.g., GRACE for terrestrial water storage, satellite precipitation products like MSWEP), observation data (e.g., gauge precipitation, climatic data), statistical trend tests, GIS-based morphometric indices, CMIP6 climate scenarios, Arctic sea ice anomalies, classical climate indices (ENSO, PDO, AO).

Main Results

• Climate change is profoundly altering the global water cycle, leading to shifts in precipitation regimes, intensifying extreme events (floods, droughts), and changes in water resource distribution, availability, and quality.
• Hydrological systems exhibit dynamic vulnerability, with observed changes including riverbed simplification (e.g., Ialomița River, Romania), altered lake chemistry due to human intervention (e.g., Razim–Sinoe complex, Romania), and shifts in drought-flood abrupt alternations (e.g., Heilongjiang River Basin, China).
• Advances in methodologies, such as ensemble boosting machine learning for flood susceptibility mapping (e.g., Buzău River catchment, Romania) and AI for evapotranspiration estimation, offer improved predictive performance and interpretability.
• Large-scale teleconnections, such as the time-lagged effects of winter Arctic sea ice anomalies on spring precipitation over China, demonstrate complex climate-hydrology interactions.
• Human interventions (e.g., dams, embankments, irrigation infrastructure) significantly modulate and sometimes redirect climate signals, amplifying hydrological changes and impacting operational readiness for hazards (e.g., Vărbilău River catchment, Romania).
• Despite progress, major uncertainties persist regarding the projection of compound extremes, feedback between climate and human water use, and the representation of groundwater processes in models.

Contributions

• This editorial provides a comprehensive synthesis of recent advancements and challenges in understanding climate change impacts on hydrological processes, drawing from eight diverse contributions to a special issue.
• It highlights the critical need for integrating physical and social sciences, improving the representation of human–environment feedback, and advancing water quality modeling under climate extremes.
• It emphasizes that hydrological vulnerability is dynamic, requiring evolving tools and approaches that consider dynamical change, uncertainty, intervention modeling, and socioecological relevance for future progress in water resource management.

Funding

This research received no external funding.

Citation

@article{Bărbulescu2025Climate,
  author = {Bărbulescu, Alina},
  title = {Climate Change and Hydrological Processes, 2nd Edition},
  journal = {Water},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.3390/w17202943},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.3390/w17202943}
}