Response of the water balance in Greece to temperature and precipitation trends

• DOI: 10.1007/s00704-010-0320-9
• Publication Date: 2010-08-18T00:23:17Z
• Authors: T. Mavromatis; D. Stathis
• Keywords: Water balance; Water cycle; Trend analysis

This paper deals with the most recent trends in meteorological and hydrological variables, which include air temperature and precipitation (P), potential and actual (ET) evapotranspiration, surface runoff (RO), water recharge into the soil (R) and water loss from the soil (L). Most hydrological variables were calculated via Palmer's algorithm. For this purpose, two rank-based statistical tests (the Mann–Kendall (MK) and a change-point analysis (CPA) approach) and the basic linear regression-based model were applied on the weekly precipitation and temperature from 17 stations all over Greece, during 1961–2006. Only in winter, all variables except for R, which showed no clear signal, presented downward trends. The declining trends of P and L in spring and summer were counterbalanced by reductions in RO (and R in the case of summer) as opposed to increases in ET. In autumn, the declining tendencies of P and L were offset by RO reductions and R increases. Annually, the trends in water cycle components were analogous to that of spring, summer and autumn. The number of stations with statistically significant (at 95%) trends greatly varied with season and meteorological/hydrological variable.