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    Cascading Hazards in the Aftermath of Australia's 2019/2020 Black Summer Wildfires
    (Hoboken, NJ : Wiley-Blackwell, 2021) Kemter, M.; Fischer, M.; Luna, L.V.; Schönfeldt, E.; Vogel, J.; Banerjee, A.; Korup, O.; Thonicke, K.
    Following an unprecedented drought, Australia's 2019/2020 “Black Summer” fire season caused severe damage, gravely impacting both humans and ecosystems, and increasing susceptibility to other hazards. Heavy precipitation in early 2020 led to flooding and runoff that entrained ash and soil in burned areas, increasing sediment concentration in rivers, and reducing water quality. We exemplify this hazard cascade in a catchment in New South Wales by mapping burn severity, flood, and rainfall recurrence; estimating changes in soil erosion; and comparing them with river turbidity data. We show that following the extreme drought and wildfires, even moderate rain and floods led to undue increases in soil erosion and reductions in water quality. While natural risk analysis and planning commonly focuses on a single hazard, we emphasize the need to consider the entire hazard cascade, and highlight the impacts of ongoing climate change beyond its direct effect on wildfires.
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    Impacts of future deforestation and climate change on the hydrology of the Amazon Basin: A multi-model analysis with a new set of land-cover change scenarios
    (Göttingen : Copernicus GmbH, 2017) Guimberteau, M.; Ciais, P.; Pablo, Boisier, J.; Paula Dutra Aguiar, A.; Biemans, H.; De Deurwaerder, H.; Galbraith, D.; Kruijt, B.; Langerwisch, F.; Poveda, G.; Rammig, A.; Andres Rodriguez, D.; Tejada, G.; Thonicke, K.; Von, Randow, C.; Randow, R.; Zhang, K.; Verbeeck, H.
    Deforestation in Amazon is expected to decrease evapotranspiration (ET) and to increase soil moisture and river discharge under prevailing energy-limited conditions. The magnitude and sign of the response of ET to deforestation depend both on the magnitude and regional patterns of land-cover change (LCC), as well as on climate change and CO2 levels. On the one hand, elevated CO2 decreases leaf-scale transpiration, but this effect could be offset by increased foliar area density. Using three regional LCC scenarios specifically established for the Brazilian and Bolivian Amazon, we investigate the impacts of climate change and deforestation on the surface hydrology of the Amazon Basin for this century, taking 2009 as a reference. For each LCC scenario, three land surface models (LSMs), LPJmL-DGVM, INLAND-DGVM and ORCHIDEE, are forced by bias-corrected climate simulated by three general circulation models (GCMs) of the IPCC 4th Assessment Report (AR4). On average, over the Amazon Basin with no deforestation, the GCM results indicate a temperature increase of 3.3ĝ€°C by 2100 which drives up the evaporative demand, whereby precipitation increases by 8.5 %, with a large uncertainty across GCMs. In the case of no deforestation, we found that ET and runoff increase by 5.0 and 14ĝ€%, respectively. However, in south-east Amazonia, precipitation decreases by 10ĝ€% at the end of the dry season and the three LSMs produce a 6ĝ€% decrease of ET, which is less than precipitation, so that runoff decreases by 22 %. For instance, the minimum river discharge of the Rio Tapajós is reduced by 31ĝ€% in 2100. To study the additional effect of deforestation, we prescribed to the LSMs three contrasted LCC scenarios, with a forest decline going from 7 to 34ĝ€% over this century. All three scenarios partly offset the climate-induced increase of ET, and runoff increases over the entire Amazon. In the south-east, however, deforestation amplifies the decrease of ET at the end of dry season, leading to a large increase of runoff (up to +27ĝ€% in the extreme deforestation case), offsetting the negative effect of climate change, thus balancing the decrease of low flows in the Rio Tapajós. These projections are associated with large uncertainties, which we attribute separately to the differences in LSMs, GCMs and to the uncertain range of deforestation. At the subcatchment scale, the uncertainty range on ET changes is shown to first depend on GCMs, while the uncertainty of runoff projections is predominantly induced by LSM structural differences. By contrast, we found that the uncertainty in both ET and runoff changes attributable to uncertain future deforestation is low.
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    LPJmL4 - A dynamic global vegetation model with managed land - Part 1: Model description
    (Göttingen : Copernicus GmbH, 2018) Schaphoff, S.; Von Bloh, W.; Rammig, A.; Thonicke, K.; Biemans, H.; Forkel, M.; Gerten, D.; Heinke, J.; Jägermeyr, J.; Knauer, J.; Langerwisch, F.; Lucht, W.; Müller, C.; Rolinski, S.; Waha, K.
    This paper provides a comprehensive description of the newest version of the Dynamic Global Vegetation Model with managed Land, LPJmL4. This model simulates - internally consistently - the growth and productivity of both natural and agricultural vegetation as coherently linked through their water, carbon, and energy fluxes. These features render LPJmL4 suitable for assessing a broad range of feedbacks within and impacts upon the terrestrial biosphere as increasingly shaped by human activities such as climate change and land use change. Here we describe the core model structure, including recently developed modules now unified in LPJmL4. Thereby, we also review LPJmL model developments and evaluations in the field of permafrost, human and ecological water demand, and improved representation of crop types. We summarize and discuss LPJmL model applications dealing with the impacts of historical and future environmental change on the terrestrial biosphere at regional and global scale and provide a comprehensive overview of LPJmL publications since the first model description in 2007. To demonstrate the main features of the LPJmL4 model, we display reference simulation results for key processes such as the current global distribution of natural and managed ecosystems, their productivities, and associated water fluxes. A thorough evaluation of the model is provided in a companion paper. By making the model source code freely available at https://gitlab.pik-potsdam.de/lpjml/LPJmL we hope to stimulate the application and further development of LPJmL4 across scientific communities in support of major activities such as the IPCC and SDG process.