Estimating the effect of climate change on water resources: Integrated use of climate and hydrological models in the Werii watershed of the Tekeze river basin, Northern Ethiopia

Abstract. The Tarim river basin in China is a huge inland arid basin, which is expected to be highly vulnerable to climatic changes, given that most water resources originate from the upper mountainous headwater regions. This paper focuses on one of these headwaters: the Kaidu river subbasin. The climate change impact on the surface and ground water resources of that basin and more specifically on the hydrological extremes were studied by using both lumped and spatially distributed hydrological models, after simulation of the IPCC SRES greenhouse gas scenarios till the 2050s. The models include processes of snow and glacier melting. The climate change signals were extracted from the grid-based results of general circulation models (GCMs) and applied on the station-based, observed historical data using a perturbation approach. For precipitation, the time series perturbation involves both a wet-day frequency perturbation and a quantile perturbation to the wet-day rainfall intensities. For temperature and potential evapotranspiration, the climate change signals only involve quantile based changes. The perturbed series were input into the hydrological models and the impacts on the surface and ground water resources studied. The range of impact results (after considering 36 GCM runs) were summarized in high, mean, and low results. It was found that due to increasing precipitation in winter, snow accumulation increases in the upper mountainous areas. Due to temperature rise, snow melting rates increase and the snow melting periods are pushed forward in time. Although the qualitive impact results are highly consistent among the different GCM runs considered, the precise quantitative impact results varied significantly depending on the GCM run and the hydrological model.

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Assessment of future water resources and water scarcity considering the factors of climate change and social–environmental change in Han River basin, Korea

Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment ◽

10.1007/s00477-014-0924-1 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 28 (8) ◽

pp. 1999-2014 ◽

Cited By ~ 21

Author(s):

Soojun Kim ◽

Byung Sik Kim ◽

Hwandon Jun ◽

Hung Soo Kim

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Water Resources ◽

Environmental Change ◽

River Basin ◽

Water Scarcity ◽

Han River ◽

Han River Basin ◽

Social Environmental

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Adapting to climate change impacts on the water resources systems of the Seyhan River Basin in Turkey

From Headwaters to the Ocean ◽

10.1201/9780203882849.ch38 ◽

2008 ◽

pp. 249-255 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Y Fujihara ◽

T Kojiri ◽

K Tanaka ◽

T Nagano ◽

T Watanabe

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Water Resources ◽

River Basin ◽

Climate Change Impacts ◽

Water Resources Systems

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Water resources change in response to climate change in Changjiang River basin

Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Discussions ◽

10.5194/hessd-7-3159-2010 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 7 (3) ◽

pp. 3159-3188 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Y. Huang ◽

W. F. Yang ◽

L. Chen

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Water Resources ◽

River Basin ◽

Climate Change Impact ◽

Global Climate ◽

Yangtze River Basin ◽

Changjiang River ◽

Runoff Change ◽

The Future ◽

Change Impact

Abstract. Doubtlessly, global climate change and its impacts have caught increasing attention from all sectors of the society world-widely. Among all those affected aspects, hydrological circle has been found rather sensitive to climate change. Climate change, either as the result or as the driving-force, has intensified the uneven distribution of water resources in the Changjiang (Yangtze) River basin, China. In turn, drought and flooding problems have been aggravated which has brought new challenges to current hydraulic works such as dike or reservoirs which were designed and constructed based on the historical hydrological characteristics, yet has been significantly changed due to climate change impact. Thus, it is necessary to consider the climate change impacts in basin planning and water resources management, currently and in the future. To serve such purpose, research has been carried out on climate change impact on water resources (and hydrological circle) in Changjiang River. The paper presents the main findings of the research, including main findings from analysis of historical hydro-meteorological data in Changjiang River, and runoff change trends in the future using temperature and precipitation predictions calculated based on different emission scenarios of the 24 Global Climate Modes (GCMs) which has been used in the 4th IPCC assessment report. In this research, two types of macro-scope statistical and hydrological models were developed to simulate runoff prediction. Concerning the change trends obtained from the historical data and the projection from GCMs results, the trend of changes in water resources impacted by climate change was analyzed for Changjiang River. Uncertainty of using the models and data were as well analyzed.

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Impact of climate change and variability on water resources in heihe River Basin

Journal of Geographical Sciences ◽

10.1007/bf02837501 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 13 (3) ◽

pp. 286-292 ◽

Cited By ~ 11

Author(s):

Zhang Jishi ◽

Kang Ersi ◽

Lan Yongchao ◽

Chen Rensheng

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Water Resources ◽

River Basin ◽

Heihe River Basin ◽

Heihe River ◽

Impact Of Climate Change ◽

Climate Change And Variability

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The «rainfall-runoff» system and its long-term fluctuations in the Siverskyi Donets River Basin (Ukraine)

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-13350 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Hanna Bolbot ◽

Vasyl Grebin

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Water Resources ◽

River Basin ◽

Air Temperature ◽

River Runoff ◽

Annual Runoff ◽

Annual Precipitation ◽

Spring Flood ◽

Current Period

The current patterns estimation of the water regime under climate change is one of the most urgent tasks in Ukraine and the world. Such changes are determined by fluctuations in the main climatic characteristics - precipitation and air temperature, which are defined the value of evaporation. These parameters influence on the annual runoff distribution and long-term runoff fluctuations. In particular, the annual precipitation redistribution is reflected in the corresponding changes in the river runoff. The assessment of the current state and nature of changes in precipitation and river runoff of the Siverskyi Donets River Basin was made by comparing the current period (1991-2018) with the period of the climatological normal (1961-1990). In general, for this area, it was defined the close relationship between the amount of precipitation and the annual runoff. Against the background of insignificant (about 1%) increase of annual precipitation in recent decades, it was revealed their redistribution by seasons and separate months. There is a decrease in precipitation in the cold period (November-February). This causes (along with other factors) a decrease in the amount of snow and, accordingly, the spring flood runoff. There are frequent cases of unexpressed spring floods of the Siverskyi Donets River Basin. The runoff during March-April (the period of spring flood within the Ukrainian part of the basin) decreased by almost a third. The increase of precipitation during May-June causes a corresponding (insignificant) increase in runoff in these months. The shift of the maximum monthly amount of precipitation from May (for the period 1961-1990) to June (in the current period) is observed. There is a certain threat to water supply in the region due to the shift in the minimum monthly amount of precipitation in the warm period from October to August. Compared with October, there is a higher air temperature and, accordingly, higher evaporation in August, which reduces the runoff. Such a situation is solved by rational water resources management of the basin. The possibility of replenishing water resources in the basin through the transfer runoff from the Dnieper (Dnieper-Siverskyi Donets channel) and the annual runoff redistribution in the reservoir system causes some increase in the river runoff of summer months in recent decades. This is also contributed by the activities of the river basin management structures, which control the maintenance water users' of minimum ecological flow downstream the water intakes and hydraulic structures in the rivers of the basin. Therefore, in the period of current climate change, the annual runoff distribution of the Siverskyi Donets River Basin has undergone significant changes, which is related to the annual precipitation redistribution and anthropogenic load on the basin.

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Robust modelling to address UPH19 to predict future hydrological responses for water resources adaptation under climate change

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-9014 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Francis Chiew ◽

Hongxing Zheng ◽

Jai Vaze

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Water Resources ◽

Accurate Estimate ◽

Severe Drought ◽

Hydrological Models ◽

Adaptation To Climate Change ◽

Projected Range ◽

Trade Offs ◽

Eastern Australia ◽

Robust Modelling

This paper addresses the implications of UPH19 in extrapolating hydrological models to predict the future and assessing water resources adaptation to climate change. Many studies have now shown that traditional application of hydrological models calibrated against past observations will underestimate the range in the projected future hydrological impact, that is, it will underestimate the decline in runoff where a runoff decrease is projected, and underestimate the increase in runoff where a runoff increase is projected. This study opportunistically uses data from south-eastern Australia which recently experienced a long and severe drought lasting more than ten years and subsequent partial hydrological recovery from the drought. The paper shows that a more robust calibration of rainfall-runoff models to produce good calibration metrics in both the dry periods and wet periods, at the expense of the best calibration over the entire data period, can produce a more accurate estimate of the uncertainty in the projected future runoff, but cannot entirely eliminate the modelling limitation of underestimating the projected range in future runoff. This is because of the need to consider trade-offs between the calibration objectives, particularly in simulating the dry periods, versus enhanced bias that results from the consideration. Hydrological models must therefore also need to be adapted to reflect the non-stationary nature of catchment and vegetation responses in a changing climate under warmer conditions, higher CO2 and changed precipitation patterns. This is an active area of research in UPH19, and some ideas relevant to this region will be presented.

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