Uncertainty in water resources availability in the Okavango River basin as a result of climate change

Hughes, D.A.; Kingston, Daniel G.; Todd, Martin C.

doi:10.5194/hess-15-931-2011

Cited by 73 publications

(78 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Although this is initially surprising (the CRU database contains more station data points than UDel), these results follow previous findings (Hughes et al, 2011). One possible reason for this apparent contradiction is that whilst the CRU dataset intermittently captures more detail in regional precipitation than UDel, not all of this regional detail is relevant for the Mekong River Basin (i.e.…”

Section: Calibration and Validation Of The Slurp Hydrological Modelsupporting

confidence: 61%

“…In common with other modelling studies undertaken within the QUEST-GSI project (e.g. Hughes et al, 2011;Kingston and Taylor, 2010), a baseline period of 1961-1990 was used for calibration, with the remaining 1991-1998 data used for validation. The input climate data were derived from the monthly CRU TS 3.0 dataset disaggregated to daily resolution (as described in Todd et al, 2011), rather than the relatively sparse GSOD daily station based dataset.…”

Section: The Slurp Hydrological Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Uncertainty in climate change projections of discharge for the Mekong River Basin

Kingston

Thompson

Kite³

2011

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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158

140

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Abstract. The Mekong River Basin is a key regional resource in Southeast Asia for sectors that include agriculture, fisheries and electricity production. Here we explore the potential impacts of climate change on freshwater resources within the river basin. We quantify uncertainty in these projections associated with GCM structure and climate sensitivity, as well as from hydrological model parameter specification. This is achieved by running patternscaled GCM scenarios through a semi-distributed hydrological model (SLURP) of the basin. Pattern-scaling allows investigation of specific thresholds of global climate change including the postulated 2 • C threshold of "dangerous" climate change. Impacts of a 2 • C rise in global mean temperature are investigated using seven different GCMs, providing an implicit analysis of uncertainty associated with GCM structure. Analysis of progressive changes in global mean temperature from 0.5 to 6 • C above the 1961-1990 baseline (using the HadCM3 GCM) reveals a relatively small but non-linear response of annual river discharge to increasing global mean temperature, ranging from a 5.4 % decrease to 4.5 % increase. Changes in mean monthly river discharge are greater (from −16 % to +55 %, with greatest decreases in July and August, greatest increases in May and June) and result from complex and contrasting intra-basin changes in precipitation, evaporation and snow storage/melt. Whilst overall results are highly GCM dependent (in both direction and magnitude), this uncertainty is primarily driven by differences in GCM projections of future precipitation. In contrast, there is strong consistency between GCMs in terms of both increased potential evapotranspiration and a shift to an earlier

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Section: Calibration and Validation Of The Slurp Hydrological Modelsupporting

confidence: 61%

Section: The Slurp Hydrological Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Uncertainty in climate change projections of discharge for the Mekong River Basin

Kingston

Thompson

Kite³

2011

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

Self Cite

158

140

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This partly corresponds to the observation pointed out by several authors , Hughes et al 2011, Nóbrega et al 2011) that the mean annual runoff can mask considerably greater seasonal variations which are of high importance to water management.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Effect of modelling scale on the assessment of climate change impact on river runoff

Piniewski

Voß

Bärlund

et al. 2013

Hydrological Sciences Journal

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The effect of using two distributed hydrological models with different degrees of spatial aggregation on the assessment of climate change impact on river runoff was investigated. Analyses were conducted in the Narew River basin situated in northeast Poland using a global hydrological model (WaterGAP) and a catchment-scale hydrological model (SWAT). Climate change was represented in both models by projected changes in monthly temperature and precipitation between the period 2040-2069 and the baseline period, resulting from two general circulation models: IPSL-CM4 and MIROC3.2, both coupled with the SRES A2 emissions scenario. The degree of consistency between the global and the catchment model was very high for mean annual runoff, and medium for indicators of high and low runoff. It was observed that SWAT generally suggests changes of larger magnitude than WaterGAP for both climate models, but SWAT and WaterGAP were consistent as regards the direction of change in monthly runoff. The results indicate that a global model can be used in Central and Eastern European lowlands to identify hot-spots where a catchment-scale model should be applied to evaluate, e.g. the effectiveness of management options.

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“…As in this study, a large body of existing hydrological impact studies also identified GCM structure as the dominant source of uncertainty (e.g. Kingston and Taylor, 2010;Hughes et al, 2011;Teng et al, 2012;Thompson et al, 2014). It should be noted that the four GCMs constitute a subset of a total of 12 GCMs which had been previously selected by NIWA on the basis of a performance assessment for the South Pacific region (Ministry for the Environment, 2008).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intercomparison of different uncertainty sources in hydrological climate change projections for an alpine catchment (upper Clutha River, New Zealand)

Jobst

Kingston

Cullen

et al. 2018

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. As climate change is projected to alter both temperature and precipitation, snow-controlled mid-latitude catchments are expected to experience substantial shifts in their seasonal regime, which will have direct implications for water management. In order to provide authoritative projections of climate change impacts, the uncertainty inherent to all components of the modelling chain needs to be accounted for. This study assesses the uncertainty in potential impacts of climate change on the hydro-climate of a headwater sub-catchment of New Zealand's largest catchment (the Clutha River) using a fully distributed hydrological model (WaSiM) and unique ensemble encompassing different uncertainty sources: general circulation model (GCM), emission scenario, bias correction and snow model. The inclusion of snow models is particularly important, given that (1) they are a rarely considered aspect of uncertainty in hydrological modelling studies, and (2) snow has a considerable influence on seasonal patterns of river flow in alpine catchments such as the Clutha. Projected changes in river flow for the 2050s and 2090s encompass substantial increases in streamflow from May to October, and a decline between December and March. The dominant drivers are changes in the seasonal distribution of precipitation (for the 2090s +29 to +84 % in winter) and substantial decreases in the seasonal snow storage due to temperature increase. A quantitative comparison of uncertainty identified GCM structure as the dominant contributor in the seasonal streamflow signal (44-57 %) followed by emission scenario (16-49 %), bias correction (4-22 %) and snow model (3-10 %). While these findings suggest that the role of the snow model is comparatively small, its contribution to the overall uncertainty was still found to be noticeable for winter and summer.

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Uncertainty in water resources availability in the Okavango River basin as a result of climate change

Cited by 73 publications

References 23 publications

Uncertainty in climate change projections of discharge for the Mekong River Basin

Uncertainty in climate change projections of discharge for the Mekong River Basin

Effect of modelling scale on the assessment of climate change impact on river runoff

Intercomparison of different uncertainty sources in hydrological climate change projections for an alpine catchment (upper Clutha River, New Zealand)

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