Climate Change Impacts on Extreme Flows Under IPCC RCP Scenarios in the Mountainous Kaidu Watershed, Tarim River Basin

In the 21st century, heavier rainfall events and warmer temperatures in mountainous regions have significant impacts on hydrological processes and the occurrence of flood/drought extremes. Long-term modeling and peak flow detection of streamflow series are crucial in understanding the behavior of flood and drought. This study was conducted to analyze the impacts of future climate change on extreme flows in the Kaidu River Basin, northwestern China. The soil water assessment tool (SWAT) was used for hydrological modeling. The projected future precipitation and temperature under Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) representative concentration pathway (RCP) scenarios were downscaled and used to drive the validated SWAT model. A generalized extreme value (GEV) distribution was employed to assess the probability distribution of flood events. The modeling results showed that the simulated discharge well matched the observed ones both in the calibration and validation periods. Comparing with the historical period, the ensemble with 15 general circulation models (GCMs) showed that the annual precipitation will increase by 7.9–16.1% in the future, and extreme precipitation events will increase in winter months. Future temperature will increase from 0.42 °C/10 a to 0.70 °C/10 a. However, with respect to the hydrological response to climate change, annual mean runoff will decrease by 21.5–40.0% under the mean conditions of the four RCP scenarios. A reduction in streamflow will occur in winter, while significantly increased discharge will occur from April to May. In addition, designed floods for return periods of five, 10 and 20 years in the future, as predicted by the GEV distribution, will decrease by 3–20% over the entire Kaidu watershed compared to those in the historical period. The results will be used to help local water resource management with hazard warning and flood control.

Download Full-text

An evaluation of the effect of future climate on runoff in the Dongjiang River basin, South China

Proceedings of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences ◽

10.5194/piahs-368-257-2015 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 368 ◽

pp. 257-262

Author(s):

K. Lin ◽

W. Zhai ◽

S. Huang ◽

Z. Liu

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

River Basin ◽

South China ◽

Annual Runoff ◽

Future Climate ◽

Weather Data ◽

Future Climate Change ◽

Dongjiang River ◽

The Future ◽

The Impact

Abstract. The impact of future climate change on the runoff for the Dongjiang River basin, South China, has been investigated with the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). First, the SWAT model was applied in the three sub-basins of the Dongjiang River basin, and calibrated for the period of 1970–1975, and validated for the period of 1976–1985. Then the hydrological response under climate change and land use scenario in the next 40 years (2011–2050) was studied. The future weather data was generated by using the weather generators of SWAT, based on the trend of the observed data series (1966–2005). The results showed that under the future climate change and LUCC scenario, the annual runoff of the three sub-basins all decreased. Its impacts on annual runoff were –6.87%, –6.54%, and –18.16% for the Shuntian, Lantang, and Yuecheng sub-basins respectively, compared with the baseline period 1966–2005. The results of this study could be a reference for regional water resources management since Dongjiang River provides crucial water supplies to Guangdong Province and the District of Hong Kong in China.

Download Full-text

Appropriateness of Potential Evapotranspiration Models for Climate Change Impact Analysis in Yarlung Zangbo River Basin, China

Atmosphere ◽

10.3390/atmos10080453 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 10 (8) ◽

pp. 453 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Pan ◽

Xu ◽

Xuan ◽

Gu ◽

Bai

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

River Basin ◽

Climate Change Impact ◽

Impact Analysis ◽

Potential Evapotranspiration ◽

Global Climate Models ◽

Historical Period ◽

Yarlung Zangbo River ◽

The Future ◽

Change Impact

Evapotranspiration (ET) is an important element in the water and energy cycle. Potential evapotranspiration (PET) is an important measurement of ET. Its accuracy has significant influence on agricultural water management, irrigation planning, and hydrological modelling. However, whether current PET models are applicable under climate change or not, is still a question. In this study, five frequently used PET models were chosen, including one combination model (the FAO Penman-Monteith model, FAO-PM), two temperature-based models (the Blaney-Criddle and the Hargreaves models) and two radiation-based models (the Makkink and the Priestley-Taylor models), to estimate their appropriateness in the historical and future periods under climate change impact on the Yarlung Zangbo river basin, China. Bias correction methods were not only applied to the temperature output of Global Climate Models (GCMs), but also for radiation, humidity, and wind speed. It was demonstrated that the results from the Blaney-Criddle and Makkink models provided better agreement with the PET obtained by the FAO-PM model in the historical period. In the future period, monthly PET estimated by all five models show positive trends. The changes of PET under RCP8.5 are much higher than under RCP2.6. The radiation-based models show better appropriateness than the temperature-based models in the future, as the root mean square error (RMSE) value of the former models is almost half of the latter models. The radiation-based models are recommended for use to estimate PET under climate change in the Yarlung Zangbo river basin.

Download Full-text

Characterizing Hydrological Drought and Water Scarcity Changes in the Future: A Case Study in the Jinghe River Basin of China

Water ◽

10.3390/w12061605 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (6) ◽

pp. 1605

Author(s):

Chaoxing Sun ◽

Xiong Zhou

Keyword(s):

River Basin ◽

Water Scarcity ◽

Hydrological Drought ◽

Mitigation Measures ◽

Historical Period ◽

Climate Projections ◽

Rcp Scenarios ◽

The Future ◽

Jinghe River Basin ◽

Jinghe River

The assessment of future climate changes on drought and water scarcity is extremely important for water resources management. A modeling system is developed to study the potential status of hydrological drought and water scarcity in the future, and this modeling system is applied to the Jinghe River Basin (JRB) of China. Driven by high-resolution climate projections from the Regional Climate Modeling System (RegCM), the Variable Infiltration Capacity model is employed to produce future streamflow projections (2020–2099) under two Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) scenarios. The copula-based method is applied to identify the correlation between drought variables (i.e., duration and severity), and to further quantify their joint risks. Based on a variety of hypothetical water use scenarios in the future, the water scarcity conditions including extreme cases are estimated through the Water Exploitation Index Plus (WEI+) indicator. The results indicate that the joint risks of drought variables at different return periods would decrease. In detail, the severity of future drought events would become less serious under different RCP scenarios when compared with that in the historical period. However, considering the increase in water consumption in the future, the water scarcity in JRB may not be alleviated in the future, and thus drought assessment alone may underestimate the severity of future water shortage. The results obtained from the modeling system can help policy makers to develop reasonable future water-saving planning schemes, as well as drought mitigation measures.

Download Full-text

Streamflow Changes in the Duero River Basin using an Ensemble of Euro-CORDEX Projections

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-21054 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Patricio Yeste ◽

Juan José Rosa-Cánovas ◽

Emilio Romero-Jiménez ◽

Matilde García-Valdecasas-Ojeda ◽

Sonia Raquel Gámiz-Fortis ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

River Basin ◽

Water Policy ◽

Global Climate ◽

Historical Period ◽

Climate Projections ◽

Infiltration Capacity ◽

Future Period ◽

Rcp Scenarios ◽

Vic Model

Climate change has lead to a generalized decrease of precipitation and an increase of temperature in the Iberian Peninsula during the last decades. These changes will be more intense over the course of the 21th century according to global climate projections. As a consequence, water resources are expected to decrease, particularly in the Duero River Basin.This study is focused on the hydrological response of the Duero River Basin to the climate change. For this end, firstly, the implementation of the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model in this Basin has been carried out. The VIC model has been calibrated for the period 2000-2009 with a dataset of daily precipitation, temperature and streamflow. Precipitation and temperature data are extracted from SPREAD/STEAD, a dataset that covers the Peninsular Spain at 0.05&#186; of spatial resolution. Streamflow data are provided by the Spanish Center for Public Work Experimentation and Study (CEDEX, Centro de Estudios y Experimentaci&#243;n de ObrasP&#250;blicas). Subsequently, the VIC model has been validated for the period 2009-2011in order to verify that the model outputs fit well with the observational data.After the validation of the VIC model for present climate, secondly, the impacts of climate change in the Duero River Basin have been analyzed by developing several future simulations using an ensemble of 18 members from the Euro-CORDEX database and three study periods: 1975-2005 as the historical period; 2020-2050 as the short-term future period, and 2070-2100 as the long-term future period. The Euro-CORDEX simulations for the two future periods are driven under two different Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) scenarios, RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5.The first results of this work show that the VIC model outputs are in good agreement with the observed streamflow, for both the calibration and validation periods. In the context of climate change, a generalized decrease of the streamflow is expected in the Duero River Basin. The results from this study could be of interest for water policy makers and practitioners in the next decades.Keywords: Duero River Basin, VIC model, climate change, streamflow, projections.ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: All the simulations were conducted in the ALHAMBRA cluster (http://alhambra.ugr.es/) of the University of Granada. This work was partially funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness projects CGL2013-48539-R and CGL2017-89836-390-R, with additional support from the European Community Funds (FEDER). The first author was supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport of Spain (FPU grant FPU17/02098).

Download Full-text

Assessment of the Future Climate Change Projections on Streamflow Hydrology and Water Availability over Upper Xijiang River Basin, China

Applied Sciences ◽

10.3390/app10113671 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (11) ◽

pp. 3671 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Muhammad Touseef ◽

Lihua Chen ◽

Tabinda Masud ◽

Aziz Khan ◽

Kaipeng Yang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

River Basin ◽

Future Climate ◽

Future Climate Change ◽

Water Yield ◽

Agricultural Crop ◽

Daily Streamflow ◽

Xijiang River ◽

Geological Conditions ◽

The Future

Hydrological models are widely applied for simulating complex watershed processes and directly linking meteorological, topographical, land-use, and geological conditions. In this study, the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was calibrated at two monitoring stations, which improved model performance and increased the reliability of flow predictions in the Upper Xijiang River Basin. This study evaluated the potential impacts of climate change on the streamflow and water yield of the Upper Xijiang River Basin using Arc-SWAT. The model was calibrated (1991–1997) and validated (1998–2001) using the Sequential Uncertainty Fitting Algorithm (SUFI-2). Model calibration and validation suggest a good match between the measured and simulated monthly streamflow, indicating the applicability of the model for future daily streamflow predictions. Large negative changes of low flows are projected under future climate scenarios, exhibiting a 10% and 30% decrease in water yield over the watershed on a monthly scale. Overall, findings generally indicated that winter flows are expected to be affected the most, with a maximum impact during the January–April period, followed by the wet monsoon season in the May–September period. Water balance components of the Upper Xijiang River Basin are expected to change significantly due to the projected climate change that, in turn, will seriously affect the water resources and streamflow patterns in the future. Thus, critical problems, such as ground water shortages, drops in agricultural crop yield, and increases in domestic water demand are expected at the Xijiang River Basin.

Download Full-text

Drought occurrence under future climate change scenarios in the Zard River basin, Iran

Water Science & Technology Water Supply ◽

10.2166/ws.2020.367 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Pedram Mahdavi ◽

Hossein Ghorbanizadeh Kharazi ◽

Hossein Eslami ◽

Narges Zohrabi ◽

Majid Razaz

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

River Basin ◽

Hydrological Drought ◽

Future Climate ◽

Future Climate Change ◽

Climate Change Scenarios ◽

Future Period ◽

Drought Assessment ◽

The Future ◽

The Impact

Abstract Global warming affected by human activities causes changes in the regime of rivers. Rivers are one of the most vital sources that supply fresh water. Therefore, management, planning, and proper use of rivers will be crucial for future climate change conditions. This study investigated the monitoring of hydrological drought in a future period to examine the impact of climate change on the discharging flow of the Zard River basin in Iran. Zard River is an important supplier of fresh and agricultural water in a vast area of Khuzestan province in Iran. A continuous rainfall-runoff model based on Soil Moisture Accounting (SMA) algorithm was applied to simulate the discharge flow under 10 scenarios (obtained from LARS-WG.6 software) of future climate change. Then, the Stream-flow Drought Index (SDI) and the Standard Precipitation Index (SPI) were calculated for each climate change scenario for the future period (2041–2060). The results of the meteorological drought assessment showed that near normal and moderate droughts had higher proportions among other drought conditions. Moreover, the hydrological drought assessment showed the occurrence of two new droughts (severe and extreme) conditions for the future period (2041–2060) that has never happened in the past (1997–2016).

Download Full-text

Simulation of the Potential Impacts of Projected Climate Change on Streamflow in the Vakhsh River Basin in Central Asia under CMIP5 RCP Scenarios

Water ◽

10.3390/w12051426 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (5) ◽

pp. 1426

Author(s):

Aminjon Gulakhmadov ◽

Xi Chen ◽

Nekruz Gulahmadov ◽

Tie Liu ◽

Muhammad Naveed Anjum ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

River Basin ◽

Hydrological Model ◽

Assessment Tool ◽

Global Climate Models ◽

Low Flow ◽

Future Climate Change ◽

Climate Change Scenarios ◽

Annual Average ◽

The Future

Millions of people in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan are dependent on the freshwater supply of the Vakhsh River system. Sustainable management of the water resources of the Vakhsh River Basin (VRB) requires comprehensive assessment regarding future climate change and its implications for streamflow. In this study, we assessed the potential impacts of projected climate change scenarios on the streamflow in the VRB for two future periods (2022–2060 and 2061–2099). The probable changes in the regional climate system were assessed using the outputs of five global climate models (GCMs) under two representative concentration pathways (RCPs), RCP4.5 and RCP8.5. The probable streamflow was simulated using a semi-distributed hydrological model, namely the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). Evidence of a significant increase in the annual average temperature by the end of the 21st century was found, ranging from 2.25 to 4.40 °C under RCP4.5 and from 4.40 to 6.60 °C under RCP8.5. The results of three GCMs indicated a decreasing tendency of annual average precipitation (from −1.7% to −16.0% under RCP4.5 and from −3.4% to −29.8% under RCP8.5). Under RCP8.5, two GCMs indicated an increase (from 2.3% to 5.3%) in the average annual precipitation by the end of 2099. The simulated results of the hydrological model reported an increasing tendency of average annual streamflow, from 17.5% to 52.3% under both RCPs, by the end of 2099. A shift in the peak flow month was also found, i.e., from July to June, under both RCPs. It is expected that in the future, median and high flows might increase, whereas low flow might decrease by the end of 2099. It is concluded that the future seasonal streamflow in the VRB are highly uncertain due to the probable alterations in temperature and precipitation. The findings of the present study could be useful for understanding the future hydrological behavior of the Vakhsh River, for the planning of sustainable regional irrigation systems in the downstream countries, i.e., Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, and for the construction of hydropower plants in the upstream countries.

Download Full-text

Hydrological simulation of the Jialing River Basin using the MIKE SHE model in changing climate

Journal of Water and Climate Change ◽

10.2166/wcc.2021.253 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Jing Zhang ◽

Meng Zhang ◽

Yongyu Song ◽

Yuequn Lai

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

River Basin ◽

Human Activities ◽

Future Climate ◽

Future Climate Change ◽

Hydropower Station ◽

Model Parameters ◽

Mike She ◽

Jialing River ◽

The Future

Abstract Climate change and human activities have an important impact on the changing environment, leading to significant changes in the basin water cycle process. The Jialing River Basin, the largest tributary of the upper Yangtze River, is selected as the study area. Three different rainfall datasets, the China Meteorological Assimilation Driving (CMAD) dataset, the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission data, and gauged observation data, were used as inputs for the MIKE System Hydrological European (MIKE SHE) model. By comparing the simulation results driven by various meteorological data, the applicability of the MIKE SHE model at four stations is evaluated, and the sensitivity and uncertainty of model parameters are analyzed. Meanwhile, the impact of large hydropower stations on the runoff of the Jialing River Basin is assessed, and the influence of human activities on the runoff change is determined. The future climate change of the watershed was analyzed by using the typical representative concentration pathway (RCP) 4.5 and RCP8.5 climate scenarios. Based on the MIKE SHE model, the runoff of the Jialing River Basin in the future climate scenario is predicted, and the corresponding response of the Jialing River Basin is analyzed quantitatively. The results show that the CMAD data-driven model has better Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency and correlation coefficient for each period. By analyzing the influence of the hydropower station on the runoff process at the outlet of the basin, it is found that the hydropower station has a certain regulating effect on the runoff process at the outlet of the basin. In addition, the RCP4.5 scenario is more consistent with the future scenario, indicating that the Jialing River Basin will become colder and drier.

Download Full-text

Different Radial Growth Responses to Climate Change of Three Dominant Conifer Species in Temperate Forest, Northeastern China

Frontiers in Forests and Global Change ◽

10.3389/ffgc.2021.820800 ◽

2022 ◽

Vol 4 ◽

Author(s):

Hui Wang ◽

Yangcui Ning ◽

Chunlan Liu ◽

Peng Xu ◽

Wentao Zhang

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Tree Species ◽

Radial Growth ◽

Temperate Forest ◽

Growing Season ◽

Future Climate Change ◽

Rcp Scenarios ◽

Temperature And Precipitation ◽

The Future ◽

Future Growth

We conducted dendroclimatological study on three dominant conifer tree species, Pinus koraiensis, Larix olgensis, and Picea jezoensis, in northeastern China for a better understanding of climate change impacts on temperate forest growth, by discussing the radial growth relationships of these tree species and projecting their radial growth trends under the future climate change scenarios. Based on the tree-ring samples collected from the upper altitude of Changbai Mountain, ring width chronologies were built to examine the growth relationships, and regression equations were established to project the future growth of the species under future climate change projected by the five general circulation models (GCMs) and four representative concentration pathway (RCP) scenarios. Although both temperature and precipitation showed varying degrees of relationships with growth of these three tree species, the limiting climate factors were species-specific. The tree-ring growth of P. koraiensis was limited by the summer temperature and precipitation at the end of growth, namely, significant positive correlations with the current July temperature and the previous September precipitation. Growth of L. olgensis was limited by the temperature before growing season, for its chronology was negatively correlated with the current February and previous December temperature (p < 0.05). The climatic conditions before and after growing season seemed to be the limiting factors of P. jezoensis growth, which was negatively correlated with the current February to April temperature and the current September temperature (p < 0.05), and positively correlated with the current August precipitation (p < 0.05). Under the gradual increasing of temperature predicted by the five GCMs and four RCP scenarios, the radial growth of P. Koraiensis will relatively increase, while that of L. olgensis and P. jezoensis will relatively decrease comparing to the base-line period (1981–2010). The specific growth–climate relationships and the future growth trends are species dependent. P. Koraiensis was the more suitable tree species for the forestation to maintain the sustainable forest in Changbai Mountain.

Download Full-text

The role of glacier changes and threshold definition in the characterisation of future streamflow droughts in glacierised catchments

Hydrology and Earth System Sciences ◽

10.5194/hess-22-463-2018 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 22 (1) ◽

pp. 463-485 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

Marit Van Tiel ◽

Adriaan J. Teuling ◽

Niko Wanders ◽

Marc J. P. Vis ◽

Kerstin Stahl ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Future Climate Change ◽

Drought Severity ◽

Historical Period ◽

Climate Change Scenarios ◽

Glacier Area ◽

Short Term ◽

Drought Characteristics ◽

Wide Range ◽

The Future

Abstract. Glaciers are essential hydrological reservoirs, storing and releasing water at various timescales. Short-term variability in glacier melt is one of the causes of streamflow droughts, here defined as deficiencies from the flow regime. Streamflow droughts in glacierised catchments have a wide range of interlinked causing factors related to precipitation and temperature on short and long timescales. Climate change affects glacier storage capacity, with resulting consequences for discharge regimes and streamflow drought. Future projections of streamflow drought in glacierised basins can, however, strongly depend on the modelling strategies and analysis approaches applied. Here, we examine the effect of different approaches, concerning the glacier modelling and the drought threshold, on the characterisation of streamflow droughts in glacierised catchments. Streamflow is simulated with the Hydrologiska Byråns Vattenbalansavdelning (HBV-light) model for two case study catchments, the Nigardsbreen catchment in Norway and the Wolverine catchment in Alaska, and two future climate change scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5). Two types of glacier modelling are applied, a constant and dynamic glacier area conceptualisation. Streamflow droughts are identified with the variable threshold level method and their characteristics are compared between two periods, a historical (1975–2004) and future (2071–2100) period. Two existing threshold approaches to define future droughts are employed: (1) the threshold from the historical period; (2) a transient threshold approach, whereby the threshold adapts every year in the future to the changing regimes. Results show that drought characteristics differ among the combinations of glacier area modelling and thresholds. The historical threshold combined with a dynamic glacier area projects extreme increases in drought severity in the future, caused by the regime shift due to a reduction in glacier area. The historical threshold combined with a constant glacier area results in a drastic decrease of the number of droughts. The drought characteristics between future and historical periods are more similar when the transient threshold is used, for both glacier area conceptualisations. With the transient threshold, factors causing future droughts can be analysed. This study revealed the different effects of methodological choices on future streamflow drought projections and it highlights how the options can be used to analyse different aspects of future droughts: the transient threshold for analysing future drought processes, the historical threshold to assess changes between periods, the constant glacier area to analyse the effect of short-term climate variability on droughts and the dynamic glacier area to model more realistic future discharges under climate change.

Download Full-text