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| Titel |
The (cQ)2 collaboration: assessing watershed scale hydrological changes for the province of Québec at the 2050 horizon |
| VerfasserIn |
Catherine Guay, Marie Minville |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2013
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 15 (2013) |
| Datensatznummer |
250072990
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| Zusammenfassung |
| The (cQ)2 project is a collaboration of various managers of water resources in Québec. This
joint effort aims at sharing best practices in hydrological impact studies in order to deliver a
concerted message about the potential impact of climate change on Québec hydrology. The
project brings together key actors of the hydrological field and climate research:
Hydro-Québec, the provincial hydro-power company; the Centre d’expertise hydrique du
Québec, a governmental agency accountable for provincial water management in terms of
safety, equity and sustainability; Rio Tinto Alcan, an aluminium producer who also owns
power-houses on Québec rivers; and Ouranos, a regional consortium on climatology and
adaptation to climate change.
We provide an overview of the study framework adopted in the first phase of the
project which includes the use of a large climatic ensemble based on simulations
from global and regional climate models, different emission scenarios, and multiple
post-processing methods. This ensemble is further described in a presentation by Marco
Braun1.
The hydrological simulations are carried out using HSAMI, a lumped and conceptual model,
applied to over 300 Québec river basins; and HYDROTEL, a distributed and physically-based
hydrological model used for 40 watersheds of southern Québec. As an outcome to this study,
the expected change in hydrological variables such as floods and droughts, seasonal flow,
evapotranspiration, and snow water equivalent, is presented. The change in those variables is
critical for mid-term and long-term planning of future water resources and reservoir
management, as well as for future design criteria. The expected warmer winters with possible
alternance of snow accumulation and melt, for example, represent a new challenge for
reservoir planning. Finally, uncertainties in the projected changes are considered and
discussed, as well as the impact of methodological choices along the modeling process. |
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