INCA climate change project
The INCA model, short for INtegrated CAtchment Model, is the result of several NERC, EA and EU funded projects over several years and is a dynamic computer model that predicts water quantity and quality in rivers and catchments. INCA represents the complex interactions and connections operating in catchments and is also designed to address the scaling up issue, via a process based modelling approach.
In a study of the likely future impacts of climate change on hydrology and water quality in the River Kennet, it has been shown that summer flow rates in the river are likely to fall in the future as drought periods becoming more extreme. Extending the modelling to simulate nitrate-nitrogen it is shown that the droughts will trigger a release of nitrate from the soils and this nitrate will inevitably end up in the river.
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