Paweł Marcinkowski

This study aims to evaluate soil erosion mitigation strategies in Poland’s agricultural landscapes by applying the Revised Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) model to identify high-risk areas where excessive soil loss adversely affects agricultural sustainability and productivity. Scenario assessments were conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of specific conservation practices—contour farming, reduced tillage, and cover crops—by simulating changes in the C-factor (cover-management factor) and P-factor (support practices factor) within the RUSLE framework. The research revealed heightened soil erosion rates during the summer months, particularly in regions with steep slopes and loess formations. Analysis indicated that annual soil loss from arable lands in Poland totals approximately 4.65 Mt yr⁻¹ and that contour farming, reduced tillage, and cover crops could collectively reduce this amount by up to 47%, with the highest reduction observed during the summer period. These findings highlighted the urgent need for stakeholders to adopt sustainable land management strategies. By quantifying the impact of these management practices on soil erosion rates, the study provided insights into the effectiveness of soil conservation measures in reducing erosion risks within Poland’s agricultural landscapes. This study emphasizes the importance of adopting sustainable land management strategies to preserve soil integrity and maintain agricultural productivity in Poland.

This national-scale assessment explores the anticipated impact of climate change on stream temperature in Poland. Utilizing an ensemble of six EURO-CORDEX projections (2006 to 2100) under Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) 4.5 and 8.5, the study employs the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) to simulate stream temperature regimes. Validation against observed stream temperatures at 369 monitoring points demonstrates the reliability and accuracy of the SWAT model performance. Projected changes in air temperature reveal distinct seasonal variations and emission scenario dependencies. The validated stream temperature model indicates a uniform warming tendency across Poland, emphasizing the widespread nature of climate change impacts on aquatic ecosystems. Results show an increase in country-averaged stream temperature from the baseline (16.1 °C), with a rise of 0.5 °C in the near future (NF) and a further increase by 1 °C in the far future (FF) under RCP4.5. Under RCP8.5, the increase is more pronounced, reaching 1 °C in the NF and a substantial 2.6 °C in the FF. These findings offer essential insights for environmental management, emphasizing the need for adaptive strategies to mitigate adverse effects on freshwater ecosystems. However, as a preliminary study, this work uses a simplified temperature model that does not account for detailed hydrological processes and spatial variability, making it a good starting point for more detailed future research.

It has been broadly reported that future climate change will most likely affect the spatio‐temporal distribution of water resources and consequently droughts. There is a prevailing notion that an increase in temperature and frequency of heat waves are expected to result in more intense droughts in the coming years. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the effect of the potential evapotranspiration (PET) method selection on future drought projections over Poland. In our study, simulations of the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model were conducted, utilising an ensemble of six EURO‐CORDEX projections, spanning the period from 2006 to 2100 under the RCP8.5 scenario. Two model setups with two different PET methods (Penman‐Monteith—PM and Hargreaves—HAR) were used. For drought conditions evaluation we selected the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and Standardized Precipitation‐Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) for meteorological drought, Standardized Streamflow Index (SSI) for hydrological drought, and Standardized Soil Moisture Index (SMI) for agricultural drought. The meteorological and hydrological droughts were calculated using a 12‐month time aggregation window, while agricultural drought was calculated using a 3‐month window. Climate projections revealed that by 2080s annual mean temperature and precipitation increase is expected by up to +3.4°C and +10.3% respectively. Under future climate conditions duration and severity of meteorological droughts are projected to decrease. PM method leads to a higher PET increases (1.35 mm year⁻¹) than the HAR method (1.1 mm year⁻¹) throughout the century which entail diverging signal of change for agricultural and hydrological droughts. PM‐ and HAR‐based simulations indicate increase in the total duration and cumulative severity of agricultural droughts, buthowever, for HAR‐based projections, the increase is much less. For hydrological droughts the signal of change is similar for both PET methods, but considerably distinct in magnitude. Considering the entire simulation period, by the end of the century cumulative severity of hydrological droughts is projected to decrease, with a much more pronounced decline for HAR (70% reduction) than for the PM method (35% reduction). Our study demonstrated that methodological choices are crucial to the assessment of future drought risk under climate change.

There have been many destructive pluvial and fluvial floods in Poland and the projection of increasing flood hazards in the future is a reason of considerable concern. The maps of river hazard zones are changing over time, and understanding these changes is of primary importance for flood risk reduction and climate change adaptation. This article aims to assess the impact of climate change on the spatial extent and depth classes of flood hazard zones for a selected reach of the River Warta in the western part of Poland. To this end, we integrated the Soil & Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) hydrological model of the Warta River Basin with the 1D hydraulic model HEC-RAS of the selected reach. The climate change effect was quantified based on the coupled model simulations forced with bias-corrected projections from the EURO-CORDEX project. Flood hazard maps were developed for two townships along the River Warta (Oborniki and Wronki), three greenhouse gas concentration scenarios (one for the baseline scenario in the reference period, 1971–2000; one for RCP 4.5 and one for RCP 8.5, for the time horizon 2021–2050) and for three return periods (10-, 100- and 500-year floods). Based on the ensemble mean, the increase in the flooded area projected in the future is more pronounced for RCP8.5 than for RCP4.5. This unique combination of software and data enabled the transformation of climate change impact into the land surface part of the hydrological cycle and assessment of changes in flood hazard and opens the way to assess the potential increases in the economic losses in the future.