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| Titel |
The impact of climate change on water resources: Assessment at the scale of the Indian subcontinent |
| VerfasserIn |
Ilias Pechlivanidis, Jonas Olsson, Thomas Bosshard, Devesh Sharma, K. C. Sharma, Berit Arheimer |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2015
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 17 (2015) |
| Datensatznummer |
250109346
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 EGU/EGU2015-9250.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| The large increase in the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases has led to the
global climate change phenomenon which is expected to have a strong impact on water
resources on local, regional and global scales. The Indian subcontinent is vulnerable to
climate change since the region is characterized by a strong hydro-climatic gradient due to
monsoon and the geographic features, and hence poses extraordinary challenges to
understand, quantify and predict future availability in water resources. In here, the impact of
climate change on the hydro-climatology of the subcontinent is investigated by comparing
statistics of current and projected future fluxes resulting from three emission scenarios
(RCP2.6, RCP4.5, and RCP8.5). The use of different emission scenarios allows for the
definition of uncertainty of future impacts. Climate projections from the CORDEX-South
Asia framework have been bias-corrected using the DBS (Distribution Based Scaling)
method and used to force the HYPE (HYdrological Predictions for the Environment)
hydrological model to generate projections of evapotranspiration, runoff, soil moisture deficit,
snow depth, and applied irrigation water to soil. In addition, we assess the changes
on high and low flows from all river systems as well as the changes in the annual
cycles. Overall, the high uncertainty in the climate projections is propagated in the
hydrological impact model, and as a result the spatiotemporal distribution of change is
subject to the climate projection. In general, results from all scenarios indicate a -20
to +50% change in long-term average precipitation and evapotranspiration, yet a
higher change (-100 to +100%) in runoff. Analysis of annual cycles showed that
climate change impacts vary between seasons whereas the effect is dependent on
the region’s hydro-climatic gradient. Future scenarios project a graduate increase
in temperature from 1 up to 76°C on average, which further affects the need for
irrigation and snow accumulation/melting processes in the Himalayas. Finally, climate
change significantly impacts the hydrologic extremes, i.e. high and low discharge,
for most regions, with the changes becoming more remarkable at the end of the
century.
Keywords
Hydrological modelling, HYPE, climate change impacts, India, water resources, CORDEX,
DBS |
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