Three Environments, One Problem: Forecasting Water Temperature in Central Europe in Response to Climate Change

Mariusz Ptak (), Mariusz Sojka, Katarzyna Szyga-Pluta and Teerachai Amnuaylojaroen
Additional contact information
Mariusz Ptak: Department of Hydrology and Water Management, Adam Mickiewicz University, Krygowskiego 10, 61-680 Poznań, Poland
Mariusz Sojka: Department of Land Improvement, Environmental Development and Spatial Management, Poznań University of Life Sciences, Piątkowska 94E, 60-649 Poznań, Poland
Katarzyna Szyga-Pluta: Department of Meteorology and Climatology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Krygowskiego 10, 61-680 Poznań, Poland
Teerachai Amnuaylojaroen: School of Energy and Environment, University of Phayao, Phayao 56000, Thailand

Forecasting, 2025, vol. 7, issue 2, 1-22

Abstract: Water temperature is a fundamental parameter influencing a range of biotic and abiotic processes occurring within various components of the hydrosphere. This study presents a multi-step, data-driven predictive modeling framework to estimate water temperatures for the period 2021–2100 in three aquatic environments in Central Europe: the Odra River, the Szczecin Lagoon, and the Baltic Sea. The framework integrates Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA), Random Sample Consensus (RANSAC) regression, Gradient Boosting Regressor (GBR), and Random Forest (RF) machine learning models. To assess the performance of the models, the coefficient of determination (R2), mean absolute error ( MAE ), and root mean square error ( RMSE ) were used. The results showed that the application of statistical downscaling methods improved the prediction of air temperatures with respect to the BMA. Moreover, the RF method was used to predict water temperature. The best model performance was obtained for the Baltic Sea and the lowest for the Odra River. Under the SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5 scenario-based simulations, projected air temperature increases in the period 2021–2100 could range from 1.5 °C to 1.7 °C and 4.7 to 5.1 °C. In contrast, the increase in water temperatures by 2100 will be between 1.2 °C and 1.6 °C (SSP2-4.5 scenario) and between 3.5 °C and 4.9 °C (SSP5-8.5).

Keywords: rivers; sea; climate change; prediction (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A1 B4 C0 C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 C8 M0 Q2 Q3 Q4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2571-9394/7/2/24/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2571-9394/7/2/24/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jforec:v:7:y:2025:i:2:p:24-:d:1667432

Access Statistics for this article

Forecasting is currently edited by Ms. Joss Chen

More articles in Forecasting from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().