Climate change and non-stationary flood risk for the upper Truckee River basin

Abstract. Future flood frequency for the upper Truckee River basin (UTRB) is assessed using non-stationary extreme value models and design-life risk methodology. Historical floods are simulated at two UTRB gauge locations, Farad and Reno, using the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model and non-stationary Generalized Extreme Value (GEV) models. The non-stationary GEV models are fit to the cool season (November–April) monthly maximum flows using historical monthly precipitation totals and average temperature. Future cool season flood distributions are subsequently calculated using downscaled projections of precipitation and temperature from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP-5) archive. The resulting exceedance probabilities are combined to calculate the probability of a flood of a given magnitude occurring over a specific time period (referred to as flood risk) using recent developments in design-life risk methodologies. This paper provides the first end-to-end analysis using non-stationary GEV methods coupled with contemporary downscaled climate projections to demonstrate the evolution of a flood risk profile over typical design life periods of existing infrastructure that are vulnerable to flooding (e.g., dams, levees, bridges and sewers). Results show that flood risk increases significantly over the analysis period (from 1950 through 2099). This highlights the potential to underestimate flood risk using traditional methodologies that do not account for time-varying risk. Although model parameters for the non-stationary method are sensitive to small changes in input parameters, analysis shows that the changes in risk over time are robust. Overall, flood risk at both locations (Farad and Reno) is projected to increase 10–20% between the historical period 1950 to 1999 and the future period 2000 to 2050 and 30–50% between the same historical period and a future period of 2050 to 2099.

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Climate change and non-stationary flood risk for the Upper Truckee River Basin

Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Discussions ◽

10.5194/hessd-11-5077-2014 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 11 (5) ◽

pp. 5077-5114 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

L. E. Condon ◽

S. Gangopadhyay ◽

T. Pruitt

Keyword(s):

River Basin ◽

Flood Risk ◽

Extreme Value ◽

Historical Period ◽

Model Parameters ◽

Climate Projections ◽

Monthly Precipitation ◽

Cool Season ◽

Truckee River ◽

Design Life

Abstract. Future flood frequency for the Upper Truckee River Basin (UTRB) is assessed using non-stationary extreme value models and design life risk methodology. Historical floods are simulated at two UTRB gauge locations, Farad and Reno using the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model and non-stationary Generalized Extreme Value (GEV) models. The non-stationary GEV models are fit to the cool season (November–April) monthly maximum flows using historical monthly precipitation totals and average temperature. Future cool season flood distributions are subsequently calculated using downscaled projections of precipitation and temperature from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase-5 (CMIP-5) archive. The resulting exceedance probabilities are combined into a single risk metric using recent developments in design life risk methodologies. This paper provides the first end-to-end analysis using non-stationary GEV methods coupled with contemporary downscaled climate projections to demonstrate how the risk profile of existing infrastructure evolves with time over its design life. Results show that flood risk increases significantly over the analysis period (from 1950 through 2099). This highlights the potential to underestimate flood risk using traditional methodologies that do not account for time varying risk. Although model parameters, for the non-stationary method are sensitive to small changes in input parameters, analysis shows that the changes in risk over time are robust. Overall, flood risk at both locations (Farad and Reno) is projected to increase 10–20% between the historical period 1950–1999 and the future period 2000–2050 and 30–50% between the same historical period and 2050–2099.

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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).

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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.

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The Impacts of Water Cycle Components on Streamflow in a Changing Climate of Korea: Historical and Future Trends

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su12104260 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (10) ◽

pp. 4260

Author(s):

Mona Ghafouri-Azar ◽

Deg-Hyo Bae

Keyword(s):

Soil Moisture ◽

River Basin ◽

Water Cycle ◽

Hydrologic Model ◽

Historical Period ◽

Future Trends ◽

Water Balance Components ◽

Future Period ◽

Global Circulation Models ◽

The Future

This paper investigates the historical and future trends in water balance components and their impacts on streamflow. The trend analyses were applied to the daily climatic and hydrologic variables from 109 subbasins in Korea during the historical period and future period obtained by a multimodel ensemble of 13 global circulation models (GCMs) of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, Phase 5 (CMIP5). A calibrated hydrologic model, the precipitation-streamflow modeling system (PRMS) model, was applied to obtain hydrologic data. The results revealed apparent trends in streamflow, with increases in spring and decreases in the other seasons during the historical period. The reduction (or increase) in the amount of streamflow was counterbalanced by the reduction (or increase) in precipitation, groundwater, and soil moisture, which was mainly impacted by the increase (or reduction) in actual evapotranspiration. However, opposite trends are projected for the future period for streamflow and water cycle components, in which spring and winter are projected to have increasing trends mostly counterbalanced by the decreasing trends in precipitation and groundwater. The reasons for the reduction in streamflow include elevated evapotranspiration compared to precipitation, reduced soil moisture, and a significant decrease in groundwater recharge. In addition, the results of the seasonal variability among basins revealed higher variability in summer for the historical period and in winter for the future period, with maximum variability in the Sumjin River basin, indicating that streamflow fluctuated more strongly in the Sumjin River basin during the historical and future periods.

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Modelling the Impacts of Climate Change on Soybeans Water Use and Yields in Ogun-Ona River Basin, Nigeria

Agriculture ◽

10.3390/agriculture10120593 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (12) ◽

pp. 593

Author(s):

Oludare Sunday Durodola ◽

Khaldoon A. Mourad

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

River Basin ◽

Water Productivity ◽

Baseline Period ◽

Climate Projections ◽

Crop Water ◽

Future Period ◽

Positive Effects ◽

The Future ◽

Impacts Of Climate Change

African countries such as Nigeria are anticipated to be more susceptible to the impacts of climate change due to reliance on rainfed agriculture. In this regard, the impacts of climate change on crop water requirements (CWR), yields and crop water productivity (CWP) of soybean in the Ogun-Ona River Basin, Nigeria, were evaluated for the baseline period (1986–2015) and future period (2021–2099) under Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios using AquaCrop Version 6.1. Future climate projections from the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute’s climate models (HadGEM2-ES and RCA4) were used in simulating the future scenarios. The results show that for the baseline period, CWR and yield are increasing while CWP shows a slight increase. For the future period, the CWR is projected to fluctuate and depend on the rainfall pattern. Meanwhile, carbon dioxide fertilization has positive effects on yield and is projected to increase up to 40% under RCP 8.5. The results of this study certainly offer useful information on suitable adaption measures which could be implemented by stakeholders and policymakers to improve soybean productivity in Nigeria.

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Modelling of the Discharge Response to Climate Change under RCP8.5 Scenario in the Alata River Basin (Mersin, SE Turkey)

Water ◽

10.3390/w13040483 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (4) ◽

pp. 483

Author(s):

Ümit Yıldırım ◽

Cüneyt Güler ◽

Barış Önol ◽

Michael Rode ◽

Seifeddine Jomaa

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

River Basin ◽

Hydrological Model ◽

Baseline Period ◽

Change Scenario ◽

Climate Projections ◽

Worst Case ◽

Distributed Process ◽

In The Beginning ◽

Se Turkey

This study investigates the impacts of climate change on the hydrological response of a Mediterranean mesoscale catchment using a hydrological model. The effect of climate change on the discharge of the Alata River Basin in Mersin province (Turkey) was assessed under the worst-case climate change scenario (i.e., RCP8.5), using the semi-distributed, process-based hydrological model Hydrological Predictions for the Environment (HYPE). First, the model was evaluated temporally and spatially and has been shown to reproduce the measured discharge consistently. Second, the discharge was predicted under climate projections in three distinct future periods (i.e., 2021–2040, 2046–2065 and 2081–2100, reflecting the beginning, middle and end of the century, respectively). Climate change projections showed that the annual mean temperature in the Alata River Basin rises for the beginning, middle and end of the century, with about 1.35, 2.13 and 4.11 °C, respectively. Besides, the highest discharge timing seems to occur one month earlier (February instead of March) compared to the baseline period (2000–2011) in the beginning and middle of the century. The results show a decrease in precipitation and an increase in temperature in all future projections, resulting in more snowmelt and higher discharge generation in the beginning and middle of the century scenarios. However, at the end of the century, the discharge significantly decreased due to increased evapotranspiration and reduced snow depth in the upstream area. The findings of this study can help develop efficient climate change adaptation options in the Levant’s coastal areas.

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Changing of flood risk due to climate and development in Huaihe River basin, China

Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment ◽

10.1007/s00477-016-1262-2 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 31 (4) ◽

pp. 935-948 ◽

Cited By ~ 22

Author(s):

Yenan Wu ◽

Ping-an Zhong ◽

Bin Xu ◽

Feilin Zhu ◽

Biao Ma

Keyword(s):

River Basin ◽

Flood Risk ◽

Huaihe River Basin ◽

Huaihe River

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River basin planning: from qualitative to quantitative flood risk assessment: the case of Abruzzo Region (central Italy)

Natural Hazards ◽

10.1007/s11069-017-2857-8 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 88 (1) ◽

pp. 71-93 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Anna Rita Scorzini ◽

Maurizio Leopardi

Keyword(s):

Risk Assessment ◽

River Basin ◽

Flood Risk ◽

Central Italy ◽

Flood Risk Assessment ◽

Abruzzo Region ◽

River Basin Planning

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Flood Risk Management with Transboundary Conflict and Cooperation Dynamics in the Kabul River Basin

Water ◽

10.3390/w13111513 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (11) ◽

pp. 1513

Author(s):

Yar M. Taraky ◽

Yongbo Liu ◽

Ed McBean ◽

Prasad Daggupati ◽

Bahram Gharabaghi

Keyword(s):

Water Management ◽

Risk Management ◽

River Basin ◽

Flood Risk ◽

Hydraulic Modeling ◽

Flood Risk Management ◽

Flood Routing ◽

Transboundary Water ◽

Transboundary Water Management ◽

Kabul River

The Kabul River, while having its origin in Afghanistan, has a primary tributary, the Konar River, which originates in Pakistan and enters Afghanistan near Barikot-Arandu. The Kabul River then re-enters Pakistan near Laalpur, Afghanistan making it a true transboundary river. The catastrophic flood events due to major snowmelt events in the Hindu Kush mountains occur every other year, inundating many major urban centers. This study investigates the flood risk under 30 climate and dam management scenarios to assess opportunities for transboundary water management strategy in the Kabul River Basin (KRB). The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) is a watershed-scale hydraulic modeling tool that was employed to forecast peak flows to characterize flood inundation areas using the river flood routing modelling tool Hydrologic Engineering Center - River Analysis System -HEC-RAS for the Nowshera region. This study shows how integrated transboundary water management in the KRB can play a vital catalyst role with significant socio-economic benefits for both nations. The study proposes a KRB-specific agreement, where flood risk management is a significant driver that can bring both countries to work together under the Equitable Water Resource Utilization Doctrine to save lives in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. The findings show that flood mitigation relying on collaborative efforts for both upstream and downstream riparian states is highly desirable.

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Structural safety and design under climate change

IABSE Congress, New York, New York 2019: The Evolving Metropolis ◽

10.2749/newyork.2019.1129 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Pietro Croce ◽

Paolo Formichi ◽

Filippo Landi

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Greenhouse Gas ◽

Structural Reliability ◽

Greenhouse Gas Emission ◽

Extreme Value ◽

Structural Safety ◽

Climate Projections ◽

Climate Conditions ◽

Impact Of Climate Change ◽

The Impact

The impact of climate change on climatic actions could significantly affect, in the mid-term future, the design of new structures as well as the reliability of existing ones designed in accordance to the provisions of present and past codes. Indeed, current climatic loads are defined under the assumption of stationary climate conditions but climate is not stationary and the current accelerated rate of changes imposes to consider its effects.Increase of greenhouse gas emissions generally induces a global increase of the average temperature, but at local scale, the consequences of this phenomenon could be much more complex and even apparently not coherent with the global trend of main climatic parameters, like for example, temperature, rainfalls, snowfalls and wind velocity.In the paper, a general methodology is presented, aiming to evaluate the impact of climate change on structural design, as the result of variations of characteristic values of the most relevant climatic actions over time. The proposed procedure is based on the analysis of an ensemble of climate projections provided according a medium and a high greenhouse gas emission scenario. Factor of change for extreme value distribution’s parameters and return values are thus estimated in subsequent time windows providing guidance for adaptation of the current definition of structural loads.The methodology is illustrated together with the outcomes obtained for snow, wind and thermal actions in Italy. Finally, starting from the estimated changes in extreme value parameters, the influence on the long-term structural reliability can be investigated comparing the resulting time dependent reliability with the reference reliability levels adopted in modern Structural codes.

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