A recent study on the Morava River in the Czech Republic, a major tributary of the Danube River, used tree rings to look at river conditions as far back as 1745. The results were surprising. The study, titled "Increasing volatility of reconstructed Morava River warm-season flow, Czech Republic," found that the river's water levels have fluctuated much more in recent decades than in the past. This could mean that both extreme droughts and floods are more likely to happen in the future.

This research was authored by The Ohio State University Alumnus Max Torbenson, currently in the Department of Geography at Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany. The study was co-authored by Rudolf Brazdil and Miroslav Trnka, Global Change Research Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno, Czech Republic, as well as Assistant Professor, Civil, Environmental and Geodetic Engineering Jim Stagge and a group of international collaborators. 

Read more about this study by visiting the news story on the Byrd Center website or directly on the Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies or download the PDF of this study.

Image to the right: Morava River in Olomouc, October 2022, taken by Max Torbenson.