Development of a Demand Driven Hydro-climatic Model for Drought Planning

In recent years, droughts with increasing severity and frequency have been experienced around the world due to climate change effects. Water planning and management during droughts needs to deal with water demand variability, uncertainties in streamflow prediction, conflicts over water resources allocation, and the absence of necessary emergency schemes in drought situations. Reservoirs could play an important role in drought mitigation; therefore, development of an algorithm for operation of reservoirs in drought periods could help to mitigate the drought impacts by reducing the expected water shortages. For this purpose, the probable drought’s characteristics and their variations in response to factors such as climate change should be incorporated. This study aims at developing a contingency planning scheme for operation of reservoirs in drought periods using hedging rules with the objective of decreasing the maximum water deficit. The case study for evaluation of the performance of the proposed algorithm is the Sattarkhan reservoir in the Aharchay watershed, located in the northwestern part of Iran. The trend evaluations of the hydro-climatic variables show that the climate change has already affected streamflow in the region and has increased water scarcity and drought severity. To incorporate the climate change study in reservoir planning; streamflow should be simulated under climate change impacts. For this purpose, the climatic variables including temperature and precipitation in the future under climate change impacts are simulated using downscaled GCM (General Circulation Model) outputs to derive scenarios for possible future drought events. Then a hydrological model is developed to simulate the river streamflow, based on the downscaled data. The results show that the proposed methodology leads to less water deficit and decreases the drought damages in the study area.     

Climate Change Adaptation in the U.K. Water Industry: Managers' Perceptions of Past Variability and Future Scenarios

In this article, the relationship between U.K. watercompanies' perceptions of past climatic extremes andtheir effect on resilience to future climatic changeis explored. Perceptions and activities related topast and future dry periods was investigated throughinterviews with managers at the ten major English andWelsh water supply/sewerage companies, and severalsmaller, water-only companies. Several of thecompanies report that they have observed a trendtowards drier summers in their regions, and a number of companies say that they have observed a changetowards more intensive rainfall of shorter duration. Recent supply measures in a number of regions havebeen aimed at improving storage and distributionrelated to the perceived change in rainfall intensity.A new requirement to incorporate regional climatechange scenarios in future supply assumptions appearsto have had little impact on planning in the region todate. Many water resource planners believe that thescenarios generated are too aggregated and do notencourage a precautionary approach to planning. Somemanagers believe that records of historical droughtconditions, such as experienced in 1933/1934 or 1995/1996,as worst-case scenarios provide a better basis for planning.     

Adaptation Strategy to Mitigate the Impact of Climate Change on Water Resources in Arid and Semi-Arid Regions: a Case Study

Climate change and drought phenomena impacts have become a growing concern for water resources engineers and policy makers, mainly in arid and semi-arid areas. This study aims to contribute to the development of a decision support tool to prepare water resources managers and planners for climate change adaptation. The Hydrologiska Byråns Vattenbalansavdelning (The Water Balance Department of the Hydrological Bureau) hydrologic model was used to define the boundary conditions for the reservoir capacity yield model comprising daily reservoir inflow from a representative example watershed with the size of 14,924 km² into a reservoir with the capacity of 6.80 Gm³. The reservoir capacity yield model was used to simulate variability in climate change-induced differences in reservoir capacity needs and performance (operational probability of failure, resilience, and vulnerability). Owing to the future precipitation reduction and potential evapotranspiration increase during the worst case scenario (?40% precipitation and +30% potential evapotranspiration), substantial reductions in streamflow of between ?56% and ?58% are anticipated for the dry and wet seasons, respectively. Furthermore, model simulations recommend that as a result of future climatic conditions, the reservoir operational probability of failure would generally increase due to declined reservoir inflow. The study developed preparedness plans to combat the consequences of climate change and drought.     

Watershed Modeling to Assessing Impacts of Potential Climate Change on Water Supply Availability

Climate change could have impacts on hydrologic systems threatening, availability of water supply resources. In Illinois, regional water supply planning efforts are attempting to better understand potential impacts on low flow and surface water availability through analysis of hydrologic sensitivity to a range of climate scenarios. This paper explores the development, calibration and validation of Fox River watershed model using the soil and water assessment tool (SWAT) and the model’s application to assess impacts of potential climate change. The watershed model is calibrated and validated using daily flow records at three gauging stations. Automatic model calibration followed by manual refinement of parameter values was performed. Calibration results were generally good for monthly and annual time step but only satisfactory for daily simulations. Based on simulations of global climate models produced for IPCC fourth assessment report, climate scenarios were prepared by the Illinois State Water Survey for water supply planning initiatives in north-east and east-central Illinois. These scenarios showed ranges of temperature change between 0°C to +3.3°C and annual precipitation changes between −127 to +127 mm in the next 50 years, excluding the 5% extreme ends of those climate model simulations considered. Changes in climate were reflected using adjustments to the historical record, instead of using direct outputs from individual climate models. The watershed model was used to assess the impact of potential climate change. Application results indicate that annual precipitation change of 127 mm on average increases annual water yield and 7-day low flows by 28% and 19%, respectively. In contrast, a temperature change of +3.3°C results in average reductions of annual water yield by 13% and 7-day low flows by 10%. Seasonal effects were investigated through evaluation of changes in average monthly flows. Increasing precipitation resulted in significant changes in streamflows in late summer and fall months where as increasing temperature greatly affects winter flows due to snowmelt. The key implication is that climate change-induced variability of streamflows could have major impacts on water supply availability in the Fox River watershed and in particular, increased periods of drought could result in deficit of supplies during seasons of peak water use. It must be noted that this analysis does not examine the potential impacts of population growth and water use on water supply availability, which are also expected to have substantial influences in the region.     

Urban stream overflow probability in a changing climate: Case study of the Seoul Uicheon Basin,Korea

Flooding from the overflow of rivers and streams can cause major disruption in urban areas that is likely to have significant effects on human activities and the environment. Such consequences could be exacerbated by enhanced levels of precipitation resulting from future climate change. Various options are available for responding to flooding; however, further studies are needed to improve the design flood criteria in order to cope with the uncertainties of a changing climate. This study investigated an improved methodology for the evaluation of the overflow probability of urban streams. This was achieved through the application of Monte Carlo simulations (MCSs) and climate change scenarios that incorporated an increased probability of overbank flooding. An estimation of the probability of future rainfall in the Uicheon Basin of Korea, using chaos disintegration with regional climate model (RCM) scenario data, indicated a projected increase of 4.4%–9.6%. The results for 100-year flooding under projected conditions of climate change, based on a hydrologic overflow inundation model, showed that flooded areas could increase by 58.1% compared with current levels, depending on the climate change scenarios. However, forecasts based on MCSs indicated that extreme rainfall could increase by 94.9%. Thus, an overflow analysis that reflects both extreme hydrologic events and more frequent flooding due to climate change could provide a more reliable means of forecasting extreme events, as well as helping to prevent natural disasters associated with unexpected extreme flooding. The results obtained in this study would provide useful data for stakeholders and decision makers to both enhance policy standards and formulate measures to reduce the risk of urban flooding within the context of a changing climate.     

Impacts of Global Climate Change Scenarios on Water Supply and Demand in Jordan

Abstract

The potential impact of global climate change is one of the least addressed factors in water resources planning in developing countries. The potential impacts of climate change are examined for Jordan, where a methodology is presented for improved management of water demand under the uncertainties associated with climate change. A temperature/precipitation sensitivity model is constructed and combined with water demand forecasts to project deficits for the year 2020. Deficit reducing options are then evaluated in terms of social and economic viability. The study concludes that only some of the deficits may be alleviated, illustrating the significance of considering climate change in planning for countries that already experience water imbalances.     

Spatio-Temporal Variation of Water Availability in a River Basin under CORDEX Simulated Future Projections

In the present study, spatio-temporal variability of hydrological components under climate change is analysed over Wainganga River basin, India. In order to address the climate change projection, hydrological modelling is carried out using a macro scale, semi-distributed three (3)-Layer Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC-3 L) model. The high-resolution (0.5^o?×?0.5^o) meteorological variables are divided into multiple periods to calibrate and validate the VIC-3 L model. The future projections (2020–2094) of the water balance components are achieved using the high resolution hydrological variables from the COordinated Regional Downscaling EXperiment (CORDEX) dataset under Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios. The uncertainty associated with the multi-model projections are evaluated using Reliability Ensemble Averaging (REA) and the bias correction is accomplished with non-parametric quantile mapping. A probabilistic based areal drought index is also computed for different scenarios using Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI). From the results, it is observed that amount of rainfall, evapotranspiration, and runoff has increased over the basin with no change in the spatial pattern. However, temporal variability is noticed with an increasing trend for rainfall and runoff in the non-monsoon season than the monsoon. Streamflow is expected to increase significantly, especially for medium to low flows (those occurring between 0.2 and 0.9 probability of exceedance in a Flow Duration Curve). In addition, the area under the drought condition has decreased under the projected climate scenarios.     

Analysis of the effect of climate change on the Nakdong river stream flow using indicators of hydrological alteration

This study models the effect of climate change on runoff in southeast Korea using the TANK conceptual rainfall-runoff model. The results are assessed using the indicators of hydrological alteration (IHA) developed by U.S. Nature Conservancy. Future climate time series are obtained by scaling historical series, provided by four global climate models (GCMs, IPCC, 2007) and three greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions scenarios (IPCC, 2000), to reflect a maximum increase of 3.6 °C in the average surface air temperature and 33% in the annual precipitation. To this end, the spatio-temporal change factor method is used, which considers changes in the future mean seasonal rainfall and potential evapotranspiration as well as the daily rainfall distribution. In this study, the variance range for precipitation is from +3.55% to +33.44% compared to the present for years between 2071 and 2100. The variance range for the daily mean temperature is estimated between +1.59 °C and +3.58 °C. Although the simulation results from different GCMs and GHG emissions scenarios indicate different responses of the flows to the climate change, the majority of modeling results show that there will be more runoff in southeast Korea in the future. According to the analysis results, the predicted impacts of hydrological alteration caused by climate change on the aquatic ecosystem are as follows: 1) an increase in the availability of aquatic ecosystem habitats in Nakdong River in future summers and winters, 2) an increase in stress on the aquatic ecosystem due to extremely high stream flow, 3) an increase in the stress duration of flood events for the Nakdong River downstream and 4) an increase in aquatic ecosystem stress caused by rapid increases or decreases in stream flow.     

Climate Change and Resource Management in the Columbia River Basin

Abstract

Scenarios of global climate change were examined to see what impacts they might have on transboundary water management in the Columbia River basin. Scenario changes in natural streamflow were estimated using a basin hydrology model. These scenarios tended to show earlier seasonal peaks, with possible reductions in total annual flow and lower minimum flows. Impacts and adaptation responses to the natural streamflow scenarios were determined through two exercises: (a) estimations of system reliability using a reservoir model with performance measures and (b) interviews with water managers and other stakeholders in the Canadian portion of the basin. Results from the two exercises were similar, suggesting a tendency towards reduced reliability to meet objectives for power production, fisheries, and agriculture. Reliability to meet flood control objectives would be relatively unchanged in some scenarios but reduced in others. This exercise suggests that despite the high level of development and management in the Columbia, vulnerabilities would still exist, and impacts could still occur in scenarios of natural streamflow changes caused by global climate change. Many of these would be indirect, reflecting the complex relationship between the region and its climate.     

Application of Heuristic Approaches for Prediction of Hydrological Drought Using Multi-scalar Streamflow Drought Index

Water Resources Management - Quantification and prediction of drought events are important for planning and management of water resources in coping with climate change scenarios at global and local...     

Performance of lot-level low impact development technologies under historical and climate change scenarios

Low impact development (LID) systems have potential to make urban cities more sustainable and resilient, particularly under challenging climate conditions. To quantify performance capabilities, modeling results for an array of combinations of LIDs are described using PCSWMM at lot-level to examine performance of individual LIDs on volume and peak flow reductions. Among the four LIDs studied: rain barrel (RB), vegetative swale (VS), bioretention cell (BC), and permeable pavement (PP), PP at lot-level demonstrated the best capability for reducing surface runoff volumes and peak runoff rates under historical weather conditions, while BC showed similar capability for reduction of runoff volumes but minimal peak flow reduction. With PP as the controlling method at lot-level, the maximum percentage reduction of runoff volume for a 2-year storm is 58% whereas for a 100-year storm, the runoff volume reduction is 20%. These results mean the extent of flooding that may arise from the 100-year storm is reduced, but not eliminated. Effectively, the 100-year storm volumes with LID are devolved to have flooding equivalent to a 25-year storm. Under climate change scenarios, performance for all LIDs declined at various levels, where BC was the most resilient LID for a climate change scenario, such that projected 2-year or 5-year storms with climate change will have its impact devolved with LID in place, to result in similar volumes and peaks without LID under historical conditions. Furthermore, even with an assembly of lot-level LIDs distributed throughout the community, there is not attenuation to substantial degrees of flooding for major events, but there can be effective control for water quantity for small (2- to 5-years in particular) storm events.     

沿淮淮北地区旱涝急转的成因及应对措施

探讨了沿淮淮北地区旱涝急转问题的内涵和特性,即具有发生时间的特定性,旱灾与涝灾重点区域的弱重叠性;运用趋势分析法对该地区10个代表站30多年的逐日降水资料进行了统计分析,指出该地区近10年来暴雨频数、降水强度和短时干旱缺水概率均呈增加的趋势;认为除了这些不利的气候变化因素外,没有解决好易涝特性与其排涝能力、易旱特性与其抗旱能力之间的矛盾是造成沿淮淮北地区旱涝急转问题的主要原因;进而从工程措施和非工程措施两个方面提出了9条应对措施。     

Quantifying the Urban Water Supply Impacts of Climate Change

The difference in timing between water supply and urban water demand necessitates water storage. Existing reservoirs were designed based upon hydrologic data from a given historical period, and, given recent evidence for climatic change, may be insufficient to meet demand under future climate change scenarios. The focus of this study is to present a generally applicable methodology to assess the ability of existing storage to meet urban water demand under present and projected future climatic scenarios, and to determine the effectiveness of storage capacity expansions. Uncertainties in climatic forcing and projected demand scenarios are considered explicitly by the models. The reservoir system in San Diego, California is used as a case study. We find that the climate change scenarios will be more costly to the city than scenarios using historical hydrologic parameters. The magnitude of the expected costs and the optimal investment policy are sensitive to projected population growth and the accuracy to which our model can predict spills.     

Modeling and analysis of rainfall processes in the context of climate change for Mekong,Chi, and Mun River Basins (Thailand)

This paper provides a detailed characterization of the observed daily rainfall series available for the Mekong, Chi, and Mun River Basins in the context of climate change; and describes the linkage between climate simulations given by Global Circulation Models (GCMs) and the local rainfall characteristics using the popular Statistical Downscaling Model (SDSM). Observed daily rainfall records at 11 stations in the study area for the 1961–2007 period were considered. Results of characterizing the available rainfall data for the 1961–1990 and 1991–2007 periods show different trends of rainfall characteristics for different locations in the study area. However, a consistent increase in the annual maximum number of consecutive dry days (CDD) was observed in the Chi catchment area, the eastern part of the Mun watershed, and the western portion of the Mekong River Basin. In addition, decrease in the annual maximum daily rainfall (AMDR) was found in most locations of the study area, except for the central part of the Chi and Mun River Basins. Moreover, it has been shown in this paper that the SDSM could adequately describe the basic statistical and physical characteristics of the observed rainfall processes for the calibration (1961–1975) and validation (1976–1990) periods. This statistical downscaling method was then used to project future rainfall characteristics for the 1961–2099 period using the climate simulations given by the UK HadCM3 (HadCM3) model under A2 and B2 scenarios (HadCM3A2 and HadCM3B2), and by the Canadian GCM3 (CGCM3) model under A2 and A1B scenarios (CGCM3A2 and CGCM3A1B). In general, the projected trends of rainfall characteristics by both HadCM3 and CGCM3 were found to be consistent with the observed historical trends. However, there was a large difference in the projection results given by these two models. This would indicate the presence of high uncertainty in climate simulations provided by different GCMs. In addition, the climate change impacts on the flood and drought problems in the study area were shown using the CDD and AMDR indices of 100-year return period.     

Potential Impact of Climate Change on Rainfall Intensity-Duration-Frequency Curves in Roorkee,India

Intensification and frequency of hydrologic events are attributed to climate change and are expected to increase in coming future. Intensity-Duration-Frequency (IDF) curves quantify the extreme precipitation and are used extensively to assess the return periods of rainfall events. It is expected that climate change will modify the occurrence of extreme rainfall events. Thus a need of updating IDF curves arises under the climate change scenario. This paper aims at updating the IDF curves for a typical Indian town using an ensemble of five General Circulation Models (GCMs) for all the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) scenarios. Sub-daily maximum intensities (15-, 30-, 45-, 60-, 120-, and 180 min) were obtained from the observed records. Equidistance quantile method was used to study the relationships between the historical and projected GCM data, and the historical GCM and observed sub-daily data. This relationship was used to obtain projected sub-daily intensities. The IDF curves were developed using observed and projected data. Analysis of the curves indicated increase in precipitation intensities for all the RCP scenarios. It was also found that intensities of all return periods increases with intensifying RCP scenarios. The variation in the intensities across the GCMs was attributed to the driving forces considered in a particular GCM.     

Drought Occurrence Probability Analysis Using Multivariate Standardized Drought Index and Copula Function Under Climate Change

This study aims to investigate the effect of climate change on the probability of drought occurrence in central Iran. To this end, a new drought index called Multivariate Standardized Drought Index (MSDI) was developed, which is composed of the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) and the Standardized Soil Moisture Index (SSI). The required data included precipitation, temperature (from CRU TS), and soil moisture (from the ESA CCA SM product) on a monthly time scale for the 1980–2016 period. Moreover, future climate data were downloaded from CMIP6 models under the latest SSPs-RCPs emission scenarios (SSP1-2.6 and SSP5-8.5) for the 2020–2056 period. Based on the normalized root mean square error (NRMSE), Cramer-von mises statistic (S_n), and Nash Sutcliffe (NS) evaluation criteria, the Galambos and Clayton functions were selected to derive copula-based joint distribution functions in both periods. The results showed that more severe and longer droughts will occur in the future compared to the historical period and in particular under the SSP5-8.5 scenario. From the derived joint return period, a drought event with defined severity or duration will happen in a shorter return period as compared with the historical period. In other words, the joint return period indicated a higher probability of drought occurrence in the future period. Moreover, the joint return period analysis revealed that the return period of mild droughts will remain the same, while it will decrease for extreme droughts in the future.

     

Groundwater storage and water security: making better use of our largest reservoir.

Provision of sufficient storage capacity under growing water demands and increasing climate variability is one the main concerns for water managers in the coming decades. It is expected that 150-300 km3 of additional storage capacity will be needed by 2025 especially in semi-arid and arid regions where changes in climate variability will have most impact on rainfall and drought. Storage of substantial amounts of water can either be above ground, in reservoirs behind dams or underground in aquifers (sub-surface storage). Recharge enhancement through management of aquifer recharge (MAR) and sub-surface storage (SSS) is a known technology and already successfully applied in a number of countries for many years at different scales. MAR-SSS is a flexible and cost-effective means to increase storage capacity both at village level and in modern water management schemes. A dialogue and information exchange between climate experts and water managers can provide an effective contribution to the planning, design and operation of MAR-SSS schemes.     

Comparative evaluation of impacts of climate change and droughts on river flow vulnerability in Iran

Rivers in arid and semi-arid regions are threatened by droughts and climate change. This study focused on a comparative evaluation of the impacts of climate change and droughts on the vulnerability of river flows in three basins with diverse climates in Iran. The standardized precipitation-evapotranspiration index (SPEI) and precipitation effectiveness variables (PEVs) extracted from the conjunctive precipitation effectiveness index (CPEI) were used to analyze the drought severity. To investigate hydrological droughts in the basins, the normalized difference water index (NDWI) and the streamflow drought index (SDI) were calculated and compared. The effects of droughts were assessed under various representative concentration pathway (RCP) scenarios. Changes in the number of wet days and precipitation depth restricted hydrological droughts, whereas an increasing number of dry days amplified their severity. The projected increases in dry days and precipitation over short durations throughout a year under future climate scenarios would produce changes in drought and flood periods and ultimately impact the frequency and severity of hydrological droughts. Under RCP 4.5, an increase in the frequencies of moderate and severe meteorological/hydrological droughts would further affect the Central Desert Basin. Under RCPs 2.6 and 8.5, the frequencies of severe and extreme droughts would increase, but the drought area would be smaller than that under RCP 4.5, demonstrating less severe drought conditions. Due to the shallow depths of most rivers, SDI was found to be more feasible than NDWI in detecting hydrological droughts.     

Quantification of increased flood risk due to global climate change for urban river management planning

Global climate change is expected to affect future rainfall patterns. These changes should be taken into account when assessing future flooding risks. This study presents a method for quantifying the increase in flood risk caused by global climate change for use in urban flood risk management. Flood risk in this context is defined as the product of flood damage potential and the probability of its occurrence. The study uses a geographic information system-based flood damage prediction model to calculate the flood damage caused by design storms with different return periods. Estimation of the monetary damages these storms produce and their return periods are precursors to flood risk calculations. The design storms are developed from modified intensity-duration-frequency relationships generated by simulations of global climate change scenarios (e.g. CGCM2A2). The risk assessment method is applied to the Kanda River basin in Tokyo, Japan. The assessment provides insights not only into the flood risk cost increase due to global warming, and the impact that increase may have on flood control infrastructure planning.     

海河流域干旱特征与旱涝交替降雨事件概率分析

在气候变化影响下,极值事件频发,旱涝交替加快。以海河流域42个代表性气象站点1963~2013年的逐日降雨资料为基础,使用SOM神经网络算法,对气象站点进行聚类分区,选取连续无雨日干旱评价方法确定海河流域干旱等级,在此基础上采用Pearson-Ⅲ频率曲线对干旱之后的最大降雨量进行保证性分析,计算不同等级干旱发生后降雨强度达到中到大雨及大到暴雨的概率。结果表明,随着年内干旱发生次数的增加,降雨频次在减小,降雨强度明显增强,海河流域极大可能同时遭受旱涝灾害。研究结果可为海河流域旱涝事件的应对提供有力支撑。