Hydrological Appraisal of Climate Change Impacts on the Water Resources of the Xijiang Basin, South China
نویسندگان
چکیده
Assessing the impact of climate change on streamflow is critical to understanding the changes to water resources and to improve water resource management. The use of hydrological models is a common practice to quantify and assess water resources in such situations. In this study, two hydrological models with different structures, e.g., a physically-based distributed model Liuxihe (LXH) and a lumped conceptual model Xinanjiang (XAJ) are employed to simulate the daily runoff in the Xijiang basin in South China, under historical (1964–2013) and future (2014–2099) climate conditions. The future climate series are downscaled from a global climate model (Beijing Climate Centre-Climate System Model, BCC-CSM version 1.1) by a high-resolution regional climate model under two representative concentration pathways—RCP4.5 and RCP8.5. The hydrological responses to climate change via the two rainfall–runoff models with different mathematical structures are compared, in relation to the uncertainties in hydrology and meteorology. It is found that the two rainfall–runoff models successfully simulate the historical runoff for the Xijiang basin, with a daily runoff Nash–Sutcliffe Efficiency of 0.80 for the LXH model and 0.89 for the XAJ model. The characteristics of high flow in the future are also analysed including their frequency (magnitude–return-period relationship). It shows that the distributed model could produce more streamflow and peak flow than the lumped model under the climate change scenarios. However the difference of the impact from the two climate scenarios is marginal on median monthly streamflow. The flood frequency analysis under climate change suggests that flood magnitudes in the future will be more severe than the historical floods with the same return period. Overall, the study reveals how uncertain it can be to quantify water resources with two different but well calibrated hydrological models.
منابع مشابه
Assessment of impacts of future climate change on water resources of the Hulu Langat basin using the swat model
متن کامل
Hydrological Impacts of Land Use Change and Climate Variability in the Headwater Region of the Heihe River Basin, Northwest China
Land use change and climate variability are two key factors impacting watershed hydrology, which is strongly related to the availability of water resources and the sustainability of local ecosystems. This study assessed separate and combined hydrological impacts of land use change and climate variability in the headwater region of a typical arid inland river basin, known as the Heihe River Basi...
متن کاملUsing the IHACRES model to investigate the impacts of changing climate on streamflow in a semi-arid basin in north-central Iran
Understanding the variations of streamflow of rivers is an important prerequisite for designing hydraulic structures as well as managing surface water resources in basins. An overview of the impact of climate change on the streamflow in the Hablehroud River, the main river of a semi-arid basin in north-central Iran, is provided. Using the LARS-WG statistical downscaling model, the outputs of Ha...
متن کاملQuantification of Hydrological Responses Due to Climate Change and Human Activities over Various Time Scales in South Korea
Hydrological responses are being impacted by both climate change and human activities. In particular, climate change and regional human activities have accelerated significantly during the last three decades in South Korea. The variation in runoff due to the two types of factors should be quantitatively investigated to aid effective water resources’ planning and management. In water resources’ ...
متن کاملChanges and Relationships of Climatic and Hydrological Droughts in the Jialing River Basin, China
The comprehensive assessment of climatic and hydrological droughts in terms of their temporal and spatial evolutions is very important for water resources management and social development in the basin scale. To study the spatial and temporal changes of climatic and hydrological droughts and the relationships between them, the SPEI and SDI are adopted to assess the changes and the correlations ...
متن کامل