Nike Chiesa Turiano
Tuninetti, Marta; Laio, Francesco; Ridolfi, Luca
Abstract/Description
The Alps are vital in generating both perennial and seasonal runoff through snow and ice melting, providing a fundamental water supply to downstream ecosystems and human activities, particularly agriculture. However, the relevance of mountains as water reservoirs for lowlands stands also in their role as evapotranspiration sources. Evapotranspiration (ET) plays a major role in the water balance of alpine catchments as it pumps back to the atmosphere 60-80% of the precipitation and regulates precipitation recycling. The recycling and downstream effects of changes in ET are not only hydrological but extend to economic and socio-political dimensions. Understanding these interactions is vital to addressing challenges in water resource management and agriculture sustainability. While the dependency of lowland agricultural production on surface and groundwater deriving from snow and glacier cover over the Alps has been widely studied, research on the atmospheric link between the Alps and European agricultural land remains limited. This study addresses this gap by examining the geographical destination of evapotranspired water from the Alps and identifying quantitative water vapor links between alpine and agricultural regions with particular attention to crop-growing seasons and precipitation patterns. To effectively evaluate the fate of evapotranspired water, we employed the yearly reconciled outputs of the water vapor tracking model UTrack over the 2008-2017 mean year. Due to the spatial variability and the critical role of local factors in shaping ET within the alpine environment, we coupled UTrack with the high-resolution ERA5-Land dataset. This approach provides insights into the relationship between alpine water cycles and downstream hydrological dependencies.
