Integrating climate models into hydrological modelling: What’s going on in Brazil?

Abstract

Studies integrating climate modelling output into hydrological modelling have grown substantially in the last two decades worldwide; however, there has not been a systematic review about those applications in the Brazilian territory. The aim of this study is to identify how the scientific community has been dealing with the topic in Brazil. The study is based on a systematic review of available peer-reviewed literature. We identify regions and socioeconomic sectors of interest and propose a method to evaluate the methodological consistency of the studies with the current state-of-the-art. The review shows that the topic has grown substantially in this decade, reaching 63 documents until 2018. The sectors under highest concern are the hydropower and the drinking water supply. The Paraná and Atlântico Nordeste Oriental hydrographic regions received great attention; whereas the Atlântico Sudeste did not. In terms of methodology, the use of multi-model ensemble leaves room for improvement. The results suggest a lack of human resources and access to computational infrastructure to handle climate data. Given the current challenges that Brazilian science is facing, we suggest the synchronization of efforts among research institutions. This systematic review provides information to help guiding decision makers to improve the topic in Brazil.

Density and classification of the rainfall network and spatiotemporal analysis of rain in the upper Parana river region, Brazil

“…A common way to assess climate change impacts in the future is through climate models such as General Circulation Models (GCM), or even Regional Climate Models (RCM), which simulate future conditions of Earth's atmosphere and oceans. Several scientific studies in the field of hydrology have assessed how climate change may affect water resources by integrating climate models outputs into hydrologic models (Borges de Amorim & Chaffe, 2019a;Brêda et al, 2020). Recent research using climate projections to force process-based models gathered evidence that climate change is likely to affect hydrological patterns in the future (Borges de Amorim & Chaffe, 2019b;Brêda et al, 2020).…”

Anthropogenic and Climate Effects on a Free Dam Tropical River: Measuring the Contributions on Flow Regime

“…Despite this river's importance on the water supply for states such as São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, there are few studies about the environmental flow regime of this basin [28][29][30][31]. Only a few studies have evaluated the effects of climate change on the basins of southeast Brazil [32].…”

Applying an Exponentially Weighted Moving Average control chart using flow history and assured energy levels to small hydroelectric power plants

“…Both land use & occupation and climate change can influence hydrological cycles since urbanization can mitigate or aggravate the effects of climate change (Pumo et al, 2017). Run-of-the-river hydroelectric plants (RORs) are most susceptible to these effects (Queiroz et al, 2016) to such a degree that the hydroelectric generation sector is one of the major stakeholders in climate modeling, according to Amorim & Chaffe (2019).…”