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Regional climate change affects the state of inland water bodies and their water balance, which is determined by a number of hydrometeorological and hydrogeological factors. An integral characteristic of changes in the water balance is the behavior of the level of lakes and reservoirs, which not only largely determines the physical and ecological state of water bodies, but also significantly affects the coastal infrastructure and socio-economic development of the region. This paper investigates the interannual variability of the level of the Ladoga and Onega lakes, the largest lakes in Europe located in the northwest of Russia, according to satellite altimetry data for 1993–2020. For this purpose, we used three specialized altimetry databases: DAHITI, G-REALM, and HYDROWEB. Water level data from these altimetry databases were compared with in-situ records at water level gauge stations. Information on air temperature (1945–2019) and precipitation (1966–2019) acquired at three meteostations located at Ladoga and Onega lakes was used to investigate interannual trends in the regional climate change. Finally, we discuss the potential impact of the lake level rise and regional climate warming on the infrastructure and operability of railways in this region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional climate change affects the state of inland water bodies and their water balance, which is determined by a number of hydrometeorological and hydrogeological factors. An integral characteristic of changes in the water balance is the behavior of the level of lakes and reservoirs, which not only largely determines the physical and ecological state of water bodies, but also significantly affects the coastal infrastructure and socio-economic development of the region. This paper investigates the interannual variability of the level of the Ladoga and Onega lakes, the largest lakes in Europe located in the northwest of Russia, according to satellite altimetry data for 1993–2020. For this purpose, we used three specialized altimetry databases: DAHITI, G-REALM, and HYDROWEB. Water level data from these altimetry databases were compared with in-situ records at water level gauge stations. Information on air temperature (1945–2019) and precipitation (1966–2019) acquired at three meteostations located at Ladoga and Onega lakes was used to investigate interannual trends in the regional climate change. Finally, we discuss the potential impact of the lake level rise and regional climate warming on the infrastructure and operability of railways in this region.

Based on 541 Landsat images between 1988 and 2016, the normalized difference vegetation indices (NDVIs) of the wetland vegetation at Xitugou (XTG) and Wowachi (WWC) inside the Dunhuang Yangguan National Nature Reserve (YNNR) in northwest China were calculated for assessing the impacts of climate change on wetland vegetation in the YNNR. It was found that the wetland vegetation at the XTG and WWC had both shown a significant increasing trend in the past 20–30 years and the increase in both the annual mean temperature and annual peak snow depth over the Altun Mountains led to the increase of the wetland vegetation. The influence of the local precipitation on the XTG wetland vegetation was greater than on the WWC wetland vegetation, which demonstrates that in extremely arid regions, the major constraint to the wetland vegetation is the availability of water in soils, which is greatly related to the surface water detention and discharge of groundwater. At both XTG and WWC, the snowmelt from the Altun Mountains is the main contributor to the groundwater discharge, while the local precipitation plays a lesser role in influencing the wetland vegetation at the WWC than at the XTG, because the wetland vegetation grows on a relatively flat terrain at the WWC, while it grows on a stream channel at the XTG. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]