High and low flows in the Meuse

The Meuse is a river with a length of about 900 km from the source in France to the North Sea. Its basin covers an area of approximately 33,000 km2 including parts of France, Luxembourg, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. The Meuse is used for a variety of functions including domestic, industrial and agricultural water supply, navigation, ecological functioning and recreation. During periods of low or high flows these functions can conflict with each other. The discharge regime of the Meuse is more variable than the regime of other rivers in Northwestern Europe. This implies that the Meuse has a relatively fast response to precipitation and is therefore sensitive to low and high flows and changes in these properties due to future changes such as climate change.

Continuing the work done during the PhD research of Booij on ‘Appropriate modelling of climate change impacts on river flooding’ applied to the Meuse basin, within this framework, the Water Engineering and Management (WEM) group of the University of Twente cooperates with several organisations on research related to high and low flows in the Meuse river.

Organisations involved

Publications 

Arends, M., 2005. Low flow modelling of the Meuse. Recalibration of the existing HBV Meuse model. MSc-thesis. University of Twente, Enschede.

Booij, M. J. and De Wit, M. J. M., 2010. Extreme value statistics for annual minimum and trough-under-threshold precipitation at different spatio-temporal scales. Hydrological Sciences Journal, 55, 1289-1301.

Booij, M.J. and Krol, M.S., 2008. Balance between calibration objectives in hydrological modelling. In: Book of Abstracts Scientific Workshop on the Court of Miracles of Hydrology, 18-20 June 2008, Paris, France, 47-47.

Booij, M.J. and Krol, M.S., 2010. Balance between calibration objectives in a conceptual hydrological model, Hydrological Sciences Journal, 55, 1017-1032.

Booij, M.J. and Melching, C.S., 2006. Appropriate hydrological scales to achieve output uncertainty goals. In: J. Xia, X. Chen and Y. Chen (Eds.), CD-ROM of Abstracts International Conference on Hydrological Sciences for Managing Water Resources in the Asian Developing World, 8-10 June 2006, Guangzhou, China.

Booij, M.J. and Melching, C.S, 2008. Appropriate spatial scales to achieve model output uncertainty goals. In: X. Chen, Y.D. Chen, J. Xia and H. Zhang (Eds.), Hydrological Sciences for Managing Water Resources in the Asian Developing World. IAHS Publ. no. 319, 57-67.

Booij, M.J., Houtenbos, H. and Hoekstra, A.Y., 2014. Impacts of climate change on drought at different temporal scales. AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts, H33N-06.

Booij, M.J., Huisjes, M. and Hoekstra, A.Y., 2006. Uncertainty in climate change impacts on low flows. In: S. Demuth, A. Gustard, E. Planos, F. Scatena and E. Servat (Eds.), Climate Variability and Change. Proc. Fifth FRIEND World Conference, 26 November-1 December 2006, Havana, Cuba. IAHS Publ. no. 308, 401-406.

Booij, M.J., Huisjes, M. and Hoekstra, A.Y., 2007. Predictive uncertainty in climate change impacts on floods. In: E. Boegh, H. Kunstmann, T. Wagener, A. Hall, L. Bastidas, S. Franks, H. Gupta, D. Rosbjerg and J. Schaake (Eds.), Quantification and reduction of predictive uncertainty for sustainable water resources management. Proc. Symposium HS2004 at IUGG 2007, 2-13 July 2007, Perugia, Italy. IAHS Publ. no. 313, 221-228.

Booij, M.J., Van den Tillaart, S.P.M. and Krol, M.S., 2011. Risks in hydrological modelling due to uncertainties in discharge determination. In: G. Blöschl, K. Takeuchi, S. Jain, A. Farnleitner and A. Schumann (Eds.), Risk in Water Resources Management. Proc. Symposium H03 at IUGG2011, 28 June-7 July 2011, Melbourne, Australia. IAHS Publ. no. 347, 95-100.

Houtenbos, H., 2013. Impacts of climate change on drought in the Meuse basin. MSc-thesis. University of Twente, Enschede.

Huisjes, M., 2006. Uncertainties in the impacts of climate change on extreme high Meuse discharges. MSc-thesis. University of Twente, Enschede.

Raadgever, T., 2004. Schademodellering laagwater Maas. Een onderzoek naar de omvang en de opbouw van de schade ten gevolge van lage Maasafvoeren (in Dutch). MSc-thesis. University of Twente, Enschede.

Van den Brink, C.J.R., 2018. Influence of hydrological model structures on extreme high flow simulations in the Meuse basin. MSc-thesis. University of Twente, Enschede.

Van den Brink, N., Booij, M., Bouaziz, L., Hegnauer, M. and Kwadijk, J., 2019. Effect of hydrological model structures on extreme high discharge simulations. IUGG General Assembly 2019, IUGG19-2735.

Van den Tillaart, S.P.M., 2010. Influence of uncertainties in discharge determination on the parameter estimation and performance of a HBV model in Meuse sub basins. MSc-thesis. University of Twente, Enschede.

Van den Tillaart, S.P.M., Booij, M.J. and Krol, M.S., 2013. Impact of uncertainties in discharge determination on the parameter estimation and performance of a hydrological model. Hydrology Research, 44, 454-466.