Projected climate change effects on water level of an oxbow

One of the most vulnerable regions in the Carpathian Basin is the Great Hungarian Plain, where small and shallow oxbows are endangered along river Tisza. The purpose of this paper is to determine how the global warming affects a typical oxbow, located on the floodplain of river Tisza, in Hungary. A coupled meteorological–hydraulic model is developed and applied for this oxbow. Results suggest that the monthly minimum water levels are expected to decrease, moreover, extreme drought events sometimes result temporary drying-up of the oxbow.