Future soil erosion risk — Results of GIS-based model simulations for a catchment in Saxony/Germany

The aim of this study is to quantify the impact of climate change on soil loss at catchment scale at high temporal and spatial resolution. Simulations were performed for one example catchment in Saxony/Germany. The study is based on the B2 IPCC-scenario and model outputs of three models: ECHAM4-OPYC3 (general circulation model), WETTREG (statistical downscaling climate model) and EROSION 3D as a process-based soil erosion model. Soil loss was simulated for the future time period from 2031 to 2050. Results were compared to soil loss based on 20 years of measured precipitation from 1981 to 2000.The results of the simulations with EROSION 3D allow the quantification of the impacts of climate change on erosion rates. The impact of the expected increase of precipitation intensities leads to a significant increase of soil loss by 64% by 2050.Expected changes in land use due to changed crop rotation, and the influence of a shifted harvest are taken into account in the scenario studies. The impacts of land use, soil management and soil properties on soil loss are higher than the effects of the changed precipitation patterns.