Integrating Climate and Socio-Economic Scenarios in a Hydrological Model for the Santa River Basin, Peru

Author(s):  
Claudia Teutsch ◽  
Faizan Anwar ◽  
Jochen Seidel ◽  
András Bárdossy ◽  
Christian Huggel ◽  
...  

<p>High mountain regions, like the Andes, face various risks due to climate change. In the Santa River catchment in Peru which includes the glaciated Cordillera Blanca, water availability is threatened by many climatic and non-climatic impacts. The water resources in the catchment heavily rely on seasonal precipitation and during the dry season glacier melt water plays an important role. However, both, precipitation patterns and glacier extent are affected by climate change impacts. Additionally, socio-economic changes put further pressure on water resources and hence on water availability.</p> <p>Within the AguaFuturo Project we established a conceptual integrated water balance model based on a semi-distributed HBV model for the data scarce Santa River catchment. The hydrological model processes are extended by feedback loops for agricultural and domestic water use. The model runs on daily time scale and includes two hydrological response units. One includes the irrigated agricultural areas which are predominately located in the valley of the catchment; the other includes non-irrigated areas and domestic water use.</p> <p>To assess future water balance challenges we downscaled and disaggregated monthly CORDEX scenarios for 2020-2050 using information from the new Peruvian precipitation dataset PISCO (Peruvian Interpolated data of the SENAMHI’s Climatological and hydrological Observations) for simulations of future changes in hydro-climatology. In the model, these climate scenarios are combined with possible socio-economic scenarios which are translated into time series for domestic and agricultural water demand. The socio-economic scenarios are developed by using the Cross-Impact-Balance-Analysis (CIB), a method used for analyzing impact networks. Using CIB, the interrelations between 15 social, economic and policy descriptors were analyzed and as a result a total of 29 possible consistent scenarios were determined. For further analysis and validation of these scenarios a participatory process was included, involving local experts and stakeholders of the study region.</p> <p>The climate and socio-economic scenarios are independent and can be combined randomly. The uncertainties of the climatic and socio-economic scenarios are quantified by Monte Carlo simulations.</p> <p>The output of the model runs is an ensemble of possible future discharges of the Santa River, which can be further analyzed statistically to assess the range of the possible discharges. This evaluation provides an estimate of the probability of water shortages, especially with regard to conflict potential with hydropower production and the large scale irrigated agriculture areas in the adjacent coastal desert which also rely on water from the Santa River.</p>

2010 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 1883-1912 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. R. Archer ◽  
N. Forsythe ◽  
H. J. Fowler ◽  
S. M. Shah

Abstract. Pakistan is highly dependent on water resources originating in the mountain sources of the upper Indus for irrigated agriculture which is the mainstay of its economy. Hence any change in available resources through climate change or socio-economic factors could have a serious impact on food security and the environment. In terms of both ratio of withdrawals to runoff and per-capita water availability, Pakistan's water resources are already highly stressed and will become increasingly so with projected population changes. Potential changes to supply through declining reservoir storage, the impact of waterlogging and salinity or over-abstraction of groundwater, or reallocations for environmental remediation of the Indus Delta or to meet domestic demands, will reduce water availability for irrigation. The impact of climate change on resources in the Upper Indus is considered in terms of three hydrological regimes – a nival regime dependent on melting of winter snow, a glacial regime, and a rainfall regime dependent on concurrent rainfall. On the basis of historic trends in climate, most notably the decline in summer temperatures, there is no strong evidence in favour of marked reductions in water resources from any of the three regimes. Evidence for changes in trans-Himalayan glacier mass balance is mixed. Sustainability of water resources appears more threatened by socio-economic changes than by climatic trends. Nevertheless, analysis and the understanding of the linkage of climate, glaciology and runoff is still far from complete; recent past climate experience may not provide a reliable guide to the future.


2010 ◽  
Vol 14 (8) ◽  
pp. 1669-1680 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. R. Archer ◽  
N. Forsythe ◽  
H. J. Fowler ◽  
S. M. Shah

Abstract. Pakistan is highly dependent on water resources originating in the mountain sources of the upper Indus for irrigated agriculture which is the mainstay of its economy. Hence any change in available resources through climate change or socio-economic factors could have a serious impact on food security and the environment. In terms of both ratio of withdrawals to runoff and per-capita water availability, Pakistan's water resources are already highly stressed and will become increasingly so with projected population changes. Potential changes to supply through declining reservoir storage, the impact of waterlogging and salinity or over-abstraction of groundwater, or reallocations for environmental remediation of the Indus Delta or to meet domestic demands, will reduce water availability for irrigation. The impact of climate change on resources in the Upper Indus is considered in terms of three hydrological regimes – a nival regime dependent on melting of winter snow, a glacial regime, and a rainfall regime dependent on concurrent rainfall. On the basis of historic trends in climate, most notably the decline in summer temperatures, there is no strong evidence in favour of marked reductions in water resources from any of the three regimes. Evidence for changes in trans-Himalayan glacier mass balance is mixed. Sustainability of water resources appears more threatened by socio-economic changes than by climatic trends. Nevertheless, analysis and the understanding of the linkage of climate, glaciology and runoff is still far from complete; recent past climate experience may not provide a reliable guide to the future.


RBRH ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raíza Cristóvão Schuster ◽  
Fernando Mainardi Fan ◽  
Walter Collischonn

ABSTRACT The decision-making processes involving water resources in Brazil and in neighboring countries have been based solely on analyses of the historical behavior of hydroclimatological variables. However, this may lead to inappropriate strategies in regards to the use of natural resources, since the impact of future climate change may significantly affect the availability of water resources. This study proposes an analysis of the variation in water availability of basins within the Patos Lagoon contribution area, which may be a consequence of climatic changes predicted by CMIP5 (Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5) models, published in the most recent International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. Two 30-year periods were simulated, from 2006 to 2035 and from 2051 to 2080, through the MGB-IPH hydrological model, considering two extreme greenhouse gas scenarios and twenty climate change models. A tendency of increase of the flows was verified in the simulated basin, since over 60% of the simulations indicated some percentage of average flow increase across all discretized modeling units. The analysis of the simulation results indicated that the data from climatic models HadGEM2-ES and GFDL-CM3 used as input in the hydrological model are the ones that respectively provide upper and lower flow thresholds for the ensembled simulations. A joint evaluation of the results generated by these two models, associated with the scenario of high greenhouse gas emissions, is capable of covering extreme flow scenarios making predictions considering climate change in the Patos Lagoon’s basin. Whereas the results provided by bcc-csm1, BNU-ESM and CNRM-CM5 are similar to the median of the ensemble of simulations generated by all models evaluated in this research. In addition, the northernmost region of the study area was identified as having the highest sensitivity to climate change, as projected by global models of CMIP5 published in AR5.


2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 225-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vivek Shandas ◽  
Meenakshi Rao ◽  
Moriah McSharry McGrath

Social and behavioral research is crucial for securing environmental sustainability and improving human living environments. Although the majority of people now live in urban areas, we have limited empirical evidence of the anticipated behavioral response to climate change. Using empirical data on daily household residential water use and temperature, our research examines the implications of future climate conditions on water conservation behavior in 501 households within the Portland (OR) metropolitan region. We ask whether and how much change in ambient temperatures impact residential household water use, while controlling for taxlot characteristics. Based on our results, we develop a spatially explicit description about the changes in future water use for the study region using a downscaled future climate scenario. The results suggest that behavioral responses are mediated by an interaction of household structural attributes, and magnitude and temporal variability of weather parameters. These findings have implications for the way natural resource managers and planning bureaus prepare for and adapt to future consequences of climate change.


Climate ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 20
Author(s):  
Kleoniki Demertzi ◽  
Vassilios Pisinaras ◽  
Emanuel Lekakis ◽  
Evangelos Tziritis ◽  
Konstantinos Babakos ◽  
...  

Simple formulas for estimating annual actual evapotranspiration (AET) based on annual climate data are widely used in large scale applications. Such formulas do not have distinct compartments related to topography, soil and irrigation, and for this reason may be limited in basins with high slopes, where runoff is the dominant water balance component, and in basins where irrigated agriculture is dominant. Thus, a simplistic method for assessing AET in both natural ecosystems and agricultural systems considering the aforementioned elements is proposed in this study. The method solves AET through water balance based on a set of formulas that estimate runoff and percolation. These formulas are calibrated by the results of the deterministic hydrological model GLEAMS (Groundwater Loading Effects of Agricultural Management Systems) for a reference surface. The proposed methodology is applied to the country of Greece and compared with the widely used climate-based methods of Oldekop, Coutagne and Turk. The results show that the proposed methodology agrees very well with the method of Turk for the lowland regions but presents significant differences in places where runoff is expected to be very high (sloppy areas and areas of high rainfall, especially during December–February), suggesting that the proposed method performs better due to its runoff compartment. The method can also be applied in a single application considering irrigation only for the irrigated lands to more accurately estimate AET in basins with a high percentage of irrigated agriculture.


2013 ◽  
Vol 409-410 ◽  
pp. 79-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ying Qin Chen ◽  
Xian Feng Huang

Due to the rich resources of urban rainwater and transit flood in coastal areas, rational utilization of rainfall and flood water resources can improve the sustainable utilization, to better serve the coastal development. In this paper, the available quantity of water rainfall and flood water resources in coastal are distributed to domestic water, industrial water, agricultural water and ecologic environmental water. Water price method is used to calculate domestic water efficiency. Energy synthesis is used to calculate the industrial and agricultural water-use efficiency. Ecologic environmental water-use efficiency-sharing coefficient method is used to calculate the ecologic environmental water-use efficiency. Finally, taking Lianyungang City, a Jiangsu coastal city as an example to analyze the rainfall and flood water resources utilization efficiency. The results provide reference to the research for Chinas plain area rainfall and flood water resources efficiency analysis.


Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 1433
Author(s):  
Navneet Kumar ◽  
Asia Khamzina ◽  
Patrick Knöfel ◽  
John P. A. Lamers ◽  
Bernhard Tischbein

Climate change is likely to decrease surface water availability in Central Asia, thereby necessitating land use adaptations in irrigated regions. The introduction of trees to marginally productive croplands with shallow groundwater was suggested for irrigation water-saving and improving the land’s productivity. Considering the possible trade-offs with water availability in large-scale afforestation, our study predicted the impacts on water balance components in the lower reaches of the Amudarya River to facilitate afforestation planning using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). The land-use scenarios used for modeling analysis considered the afforestation of 62% and 100% of marginally productive croplands under average and low irrigation water supply identified from historical land-use maps. The results indicate a dramatic decrease in the examined water balance components in all afforestation scenarios based largely on the reduced irrigation demand of trees compared to the main crops. Specifically, replacing current crops (mostly cotton) with trees on all marginal land (approximately 663 km2) in the study region with an average water availability would save 1037 mln m3 of gross irrigation input within the study region and lower the annual drainage discharge by 504 mln m3. These effects have a considerable potential to support irrigation water management and enhance drainage functions in adapting to future water supply limitations.


Hydrology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 38
Author(s):  
Nick Martin

Climate and land use and land cover (LULC) changes will impact watershed-scale water resources. These systemic alterations will have interacting influences on water availability. A probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) framework for water resource impact analysis from future systemic change is described and implemented to examine combined climate and LULC change impacts from 2011–2100 for a study site in west-central Texas. Internally, the PRA framework provides probabilistic simulation of reference and future conditions using weather generator and water balance models in series—one weather generator and water balance model for reference and one of each for future conditions. To quantify future conditions uncertainty, framework results are the magnitude of change in water availability, from the comparison of simulated reference and future conditions, and likelihoods for each change. Inherent advantages of the framework formulation for analyzing future risk are the explicit incorporation of reference conditions to avoid additional scenario-based analysis of reference conditions and climate change emissions scenarios. In the case study application, an increase in impervious area from economic development is the LULC change; it generates a 1.1 times increase in average water availability, relative to future climate trends, from increased runoff and decreased transpiration.


Climate ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 92
Author(s):  
Tewodros R. Godebo ◽  
Marc A. Jeuland ◽  
Christopher J. Paul ◽  
Dagnachew L. Belachew ◽  
Peter G. McCornick

This work aims to assess water quality for irrigated agriculture, alongside perceptions and adaptations of farmers to climate change in the Main Ethiopian Rift (MER). Climate change is expected to cause a rise in temperature and variability in rainfall in the region, reducing surface water availability and raising dependence on groundwater. The study data come from surveys with 147 farmers living in the Ziway–Shala basin and water quality assessments of 162 samples from groundwater wells and surface water. Most groundwater samples were found to be unsuitable for long term agricultural use due to their high salinity and sodium adsorption ratio, which has implications for soil permeability, as well as elevated bicarbonate, boron and residual sodium carbonate concentrations. The survey data indicate that water sufficiency is a major concern for farmers that leads to frequent crop failures, especially due to erratic and insufficient rainfall. An important adaptation mechanism for farmers is the use of improved crop varieties, but major barriers to adaptation include a lack of access to irrigation water, credit or savings, appropriate seeds, and knowledge or information on weather and climate conditions. Local (development) agents are identified as vital to enhancing farmers’ knowledge of risks and solutions, and extension programs must therefore continue to promote resilience and adaptation in the area. Unfortunately, much of the MER groundwater that could be used to cope with declining viability of rainfed agriculture and surface water availability, is poor in quality. The use of saline groundwater could jeopardize the agricultural sector, and most notably commercial horticulture and floriculture activities. This study highlights the complex nexus of water quality and sufficiency challenges facing the agriculture sector in the region, and should help decision-makers to design feasible strategies for enhancing adaptation and food security.


2017 ◽  
Vol 113 (7/8) ◽  
Author(s):  
Abiodun A. Ogundeji ◽  
Henry Jordaan

Climate change and its impact on already scarce water resources are of global importance, but even more so for water scarce countries. Apart from the effect of climate change on water supply, the chill unit requirement of deciduous fruit crops is also expected to be affected. Although research on crop water use has been undertaken, researchers have not taken the future climate into consideration. They also have focused on increasing temperatures but failed to relate temperature to chill unit accumulation, especially in South Africa. With a view of helping farmers to adapt to climate change, in this study we provide information that will assist farmers in their decision-making process for adaptation and in the selection of appropriate cultivars of deciduous fruits. Crop water use and chill unit requirements are modelled for the present and future climate. Results show that, irrespective of the irrigation system employed, climate change has led to increases in crop water use. Water use with the drip irrigation system was lower than with sprinkler irrigation as a result of efficiency differences in the irrigation technologies. It was also confirmed that the accumulated chill units will decrease in the future as a consequence of climate change. In order to remain in production, farmers need to adapt to climate change stress by putting in place water resources and crop management plans. Thus, producers must be furnished with a variety of adaptation or management strategies to overcome the impact of climate change.


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