Modeling Hydrological Response to Climate Change in a Data-Scarce Glacierized High Mountain Astore Basin Using a Fully Distributed TOPKAPI Model

Abstract

Water scarcity is influencing environmental and socio-economic development on a global scale. Pakistan is ranked third among the countries facing water scarcity. This situation is currently generating intra-provincial water disputes and could lead to transboundary water conflicts. This study assessed the future water resources of Astore basin under representative concentration pathways (RCP) 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios using fully distributed TOPographic Kinematic APproximation and Integration (TOPKAPI) model. TOPKAPI model was calibrated and validated over five years from 1999–2003 with a Nash coefficient ranging from 0.93–0.97. Towards the end of the 21st century, the air temperature of Astore will increase by 3°C and 9.6 °C under the RCP4.5 and 8.5 scenarios, respectively. The rise in air temperature can decrease the snow cover with Mann Kendall trend of –0.12%/yr and –0.39%/yr (p ≥ 0.05) while annual discharge projected to be increased 11% (p ≤ 0.05) and 37% (p ≥ 0.05) under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, respectively. Moreover, the Astore basin showed a different pattern of seasonal shifts, as surface runoff in summer monsoon season declined further due to a reduction in precipitation. In the spring season, the earlier onset of snow and glacier melting increased the runoff due to high temperature, regardless of the decreasing trend of precipitation. This increased surface runoff from snow/glacier melt of Upper Indus Basin (UIB) can potentially be utilized to develop water policy and planning new water harvesting and storage structures, to reduce the risk of flooding.

Simulation and Evaluation of Runoff in Tributary of Weihe River Basin in Western China

“…For instance, the water content of watershed favors the determination of the source area, and the water content can be calculated with the geomorphic index using the topography-based hydrological model (TOPMODEL) [12][13][14][15][16]. The topographic dynamic approximation and integration (TOPKAPI) model can model the movement of soils, surfaces, and channel grids into the water flow, and it uses motion waves to simulate the water cycle [17][18][19][20][21]. The variable infiltration capacity (VIC) model can simultaneously simulate land-period and water volume energy balance [22][23][24][25][26].…”

Modelling and analysis of the Brumadinho tailings disaster using advanced geospatial analytics

“…In the last decade, GIS and RS have been extensively and successfully used in disaster management studies, e.g. seismic disasters (Ehrlich et al, 2009;Frigerio et al, 2016); flood disasters Waheed, 2015, Sajjad et al, 2020); geological disasters (Li et al, 2005, Mahboob et al, 2015b, 2019b; droughts (Raut et al, 2020, Atif, Iqbal, andSu, 2019); and fire disasters (Hinkley, 2019). Several commercial and open-source satellite data-sets are available for both pre-and post-disaster analysis and future risk assessments (Mahboob et al, 2019b;Voigt et al, 2007;van Westen, 2013).…”