Hydrological balance of the Como lake

Lakes are surface water bodies whose balance is defined by inlows (from rivers, precipitation, groundwater) and outflows (discharge, evaporation, groundwater). Lakes are natural (or regulated) storages of water used by humans for several activities such as irrigation, fishing and energy production. Such uses of water are often in competition and represent the major challenge of water managers, expecially in the frame of climate change. The hydrological balance of the lake is an important step in the management of water and it has the aim of evaluating the inflows, outflows and volume change, considering att hydrological processes. The aim of thesis is to define the hydrological balance of the Como Lake. This is one of the most important lakes in Northern Italy and the deepest of all. The study of this lake is part of biggest project which aims at estimating the water resources and management in the Po river basin, in order to implement adaptation strategies to climate change. The Como lake is an alpine glacial lake characterized by high water quality. Its environmental value is large and thanks to the high water quality, it is very important for fishing, for agriculture and tourism purposes. All hydro-meteorological data used in the study have been extracted from ARPA Lombardia and analyzed before being used for modelling. Then, additional variables have been estimated from the downloaded data, such as evapotranspiration and flow rate values. These data have been used to simulate the inflows with the hydrological HBV model, whereas the discharge has been estimatd from water level data. Finally, the hydrological balance of the lake was reconstructed. The hydrological study has considered the lake variability along 18 years, which is a good time span for water management purposes.