@article{KumarHesseRaoetal.2020,
  author    = {Kumar, Rohini and Hesse, Fabienne and Rao, P. Srinivasa and Musolff, Andreas and Jawitz, James and Sarrazin, Francois and Samaniego, Luis and Fleckenstein, Jan H. and Rakovec, Oldrich and Thober, S. and Attinger, Sabine},
  title     = {Strong hydroclimatic controls on vulnerability to subsurface nitrate contamination across Europe},
  series = {Nature Communications},
  volume    = {11},
  journal   = {Nature Communications},
  number    = {1},
  publisher = {Nature Publishing Group UK},
  address   = {London},
  issn      = {2041-1723},
  doi       = {10.1038/s41467-020-19955-8},
  pages     = {1 -- 10},
  year      = {2020},
  abstract  = {Subsurface contamination due to excessive nutrient surpluses is a persistent and widespread problem in agricultural areas across Europe. The vulnerability of a particular location to pollution from reactive solutes, such as nitrate, is determined by the interplay between hydrologic transport and biogeochemical transformations. Current studies on the controls of subsurface vulnerability do not consider the transient behaviour of transport dynamics in the root zone. Here, using state-of-the-art hydrologic simulations driven by observed hydroclimatic forcing, we demonstrate the strong spatiotemporal heterogeneity of hydrologic transport dynamics and reveal that these dynamics are primarily controlled by the hydroclimatic gradient of the aridity index across Europe. Contrasting the space-time dynamics of transport times with reactive timescales of denitrification in soil indicate that similar to 75\% of the cultivated areas across Europe are potentially vulnerable to nitrate leaching for at least onethird of the year. We find that neglecting the transient nature of transport and reaction timescale results in a great underestimation of the extent of vulnerable regions by almost 50\%. Therefore, future vulnerability and risk assessment studies must account for the transient behaviour of transport and biogeochemical transformation processes.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{JingKumarHesseetal.2020,
  author    = {Jing, Miao and Kumar, Rohini and Heße, Falk and Thober, Stephan and Rakovec, Oldrich and Samaniego, Luis and Attinger, Sabine},
  title     = {Assessing the response of groundwater quantity and travel time distribution to 1.5, 2, and 3 °C global warming in a mesoscale central German basin},
  series = {Hydrology and Earth System Sciences},
  volume    = {24},
  journal   = {Hydrology and Earth System Sciences},
  number    = {3},
  publisher = {Copernicus Publ.},
  address   = {G{\"o}ttingen},
  issn      = {1607-7938},
  doi       = {10.5194/hess-24-1511-2020},
  pages     = {1511 -- 1526},
  year      = {2020},
  abstract  = {Groundwater is the biggest single source of high-quality freshwater worldwide, which is also continuously threatened by the changing climate. In this paper, we investigate the response of the regional groundwater system to climate change under three global warming levels (1.5, 2, and 3 ∘C) in a central German basin (N{\"a}gelstedt). This investigation is conducted by deploying an integrated modeling workflow that consists of a mesoscale hydrologic model (mHM) and a fully distributed groundwater model, OpenGeoSys (OGS). mHM is forced with climate simulations of five general circulation models under three representative concentration pathways. The diffuse recharges estimated by mHM are used as boundary forcings to the OGS groundwater model to compute changes in groundwater levels and travel time distributions. Simulation results indicate that groundwater recharges and levels are expected to increase slightly under future climate scenarios. Meanwhile, the mean travel time is expected to decrease compared to the historical average. However, the ensemble simulations do not all agree on the sign of relative change. Changes in mean travel time exhibit a larger variability than those in groundwater levels. The ensemble simulations do not show a systematic relationship between the projected change (in both groundwater levels and travel times) and the warming level, but they indicate an increased variability in projected changes with adjusting the enhanced warming level from 1.5 to 3 ∘C. Correspondingly, it is highly recommended to restrain the trend of global warming.},
  language  = {en}
}