2007 Annual Meeting and Arctic Forum | Abstracts

Pan-Arctic Drainage Basin Monitoring: Current Status and Potential Significance for Assessment of Climate Change Impacts and Feedbacks

Arvid Bring¹, Georgia Destouni², Fredrik Hannerz^3
1Department of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, SE-106 91, Sweden, Phone +46 7 39 87 00 , arvid@bring.se
²Department of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, -, SE-106 91, Sweden, Phone +46 8 16 47 85, georgia.destouni@natgeo.su.se
³Department of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, -, SE-106 91, Sweden, Phone +46 8 16 48 86, Fax +46 8 16 47 94, fredrik.hannerz@natgeo.su.se

Access to reliable hydrologic data is of paramount importance for the accurate understanding of changes in the arctic hydrologic cycle, and is also vital to policymakers as a base for sound environmental decisions. Accessibility to such data is limited and continues to decline for some arctic areas, while little information exists on which data gaps are most critical. This study presents a quantitative assessment of openly available monitoring data for water discharge and chemistry in the pan-arctic drainage basin. Results indicate that there is significant disparity in the spatial and temporal distribution of accessible monitoring data, in particular for water chemistry monitoring. Additionally, there are systematic differences between the characteristics of monitored and unmonitored areas. These differences may limit the reliability of assessments of arctic water and solute flux changes under a warming climate. Arctic monitoring needs to be extended in certain areas, and data needs to be disseminated more efficiently, to fully enable characterization of the hydrologic variability and change in the region.