Quantifying the overlooked groundwater component in the water budget of a shallow soda lake in Hungary amidst climate change concerns

Petra Baják*, András Csepregi, Péter Szabó, Máté Chappon, Ádám Tóth, Katalin Hegedűs-Csondor, Anita Erőss

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Study region: Lake Velence. Study focus: Soda lakes are extreme habitats whose special hydrochemical characteristics can partly be explained by groundwater inflow. The relationship between groundwater and Lake Velence has never been properly investigated. A significant decrease in the lake's level in recent years urged an evaluation of the components of the lake's water budget, including groundwater as well. A 3D transient numerical groundwater flow simulation, using Visual MODFLOW, was performed between 1990 and 2021 to evaluate the lake's relationship with groundwater and quantify the groundwater discharge into the lake. To assess future lake level changes until 2050, six lake level simulations were run based on three different regional climate models and two global warming scenarios (RCP2.6 and RCP8.5). New hydrological insights for the region: Our results showed that groundwater inflow accounts for up to 12 % of the total annual inflow into Lake Velence. It has been numerically shown that precipitation and evaporation are the primary drivers of lake level changes, meaning that the variation of these two parameters will impact the lake's future. As for the future lake level changes, the RCP2.6 scenario resulted in an increase of 11 cm, while the RCP8.5 scenario led to a decrease of 30 cm compared to the observed annual average lake level until 2050. Our results emphasize the importance of integrating soda lakes into topography-driven groundwater flow systems to develop climate change adaptation strategies.

Original languageEnglish
Article number101961
Number of pages14
JournalJournal of Hydrology: Regional Studies
Volume56
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2024

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 The Authors

Funding

The research was supported by the UNKP-22-3 and UNKP-23-4 New National Excellence Program of the Ministry for Culture and Innovation from the source of the National Research, Development and Innovation Fund, and by the Janos Bolyai Research Scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The topic is related to research funded by the National Multidisciplinary Laboratory for Climate Change, RRF-2.3.1-21-2022-00014 project. The research was carried out within the framework of the hydrogeology research group of the Jozsef and Erzsebet Toth Endowed Hydrogeology Chair and Foundation. The authors wish to acknowledge the contribution of Emese Gizella Kova cs (General Directorate of Water Management) and Peter Szabo (Central Transdanubian Water Directorate) whose help was invaluable during data collection. The assistance of Kinga Gere and Judit Feher (Supervisory Authority of Regulatory Affairs) in data mining is also highly appreciated.

FundersFunder number
New National Excellence Program of the Ministry for Culture and Innovation from National Research, Development and Innovation FundUNKP-22-3, UNKP-23-4
Janos Bolyai Research Scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of SciencesRRF-2.3.1-21-2022-00014
National Multidisciplinary Laboratory for Climate ChangeRRF-2.3.1-21-2022-00014

    Keywords

    • Lake level projection
    • Regional climate models
    • Surface water–groundwater interaction
    • Topography-driven groundwater flow systems
    • Visual MODFLOW

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