Influence of Land-Use and Water Management Practices on Water Levels in the Middle River Vistula

Abstract

The present paper addresses the influence of land use changes and water management on flow along the Middle River Vistula reach. We adopt a methodology tested at the catchment scale, which consists of an optimisation of a rainfall-runoff model using a moving time horizon and an analysis of the variability of model parameters. In the present application, it consists of an analysis of the changes of residence times of a linear Stochastic Transfer Function (STF) type model optimised using a moving ten-year window. The chosen river reach (between Zawichost and Gusin) has a reported history of land use changes over the last 50 years. The nature of the changes is complex and shows different trends for different plant communities and sections of the valley. The first step of the procedure is to define the river reaches that have recorded information on land use change. The second step consists of analyses of static relationships between water level observations at neighbouring gauging stations along the river. We analyse the changes in observed water level quantiles. The third task is to perform the moving window optimisation of the STF dynamic model for selected river reaches. The final step is to analyse the results and relate the model parameter changes to historical land use changes. The results of the static and dynamic analyses are consistent for the first two reaches (Zawichost-Annopol-Puławy) and can be explained by land-use and water management influences. However, the reaches from Puławy-Dęblin-Gusin show inconsistent behaviour, pointing to a need for further study.