Using multiple climate projections for assessing hydrological response to climate change in the Thukela River Basin, South Africa

Graham, L. Phil; Andersson, Lotta; Horan, Mark; Kunz, Richard; Lumsden, Trevor; Schulze, R. E.; Warburton, Michele; Wilk, Julie; Yang, Wei

doi:10.1016/j.pce.2011.07.084

Cited by 38 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…According to Li et al 33 the projected temperature shows an increasing tendency over Southern Africa in the near future until 2029. Graham et al 34 found a 3ºC maximum temperature increase for Thukela Catchment in South Africa. According to Hamududu et al, 36 the temperature projections in the Zambezi basin indicate an increase up to 2.7ºC by end of the century and Beilfuss, 5 projected 0.3-0.6°C increase per decade (0.8°C in the summer months by 2050).…”

Section: Projected Changes In Temperaturementioning

confidence: 98%

Variability and trends of rainfall, precipitation and discharges over zambezi river basin, southern africa: review

Banze¹,

Guo²,

Shi³

2018

IJH

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Variability and trends of rainfall, precipitation and discharges over zambezi river basin, southern africa: review Submit Manuscript | http://medcraveonline.com IntroductionHuman influence on the climate system is clear, and recent anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are the highest in history. Their effects, together with those of other anthropogenic drivers, have been detected throughout the climate system and are extremely likely to have been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. Recent climate changes have had widespread impacts on human and natural systems. Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia. 1 according to Res & Trenberth,2 there is a direct influence of global warming on precipitation. Increased heating leads to greater evaporation and thus surface drying, thereby increasing the intensity and duration of drought. The African continent has been identified as particularly vulnerable to the changing climate due to its envisaged low adaptive capacity and vulnerability and the southern African region is regarded as one of the most vulnerable regions in Africa.3 This affects the water resource in terms of quality and quantity of water.4 Africa is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and numerous climate change models predict that the continent's weather patterns will become more variable, and extreme weather events are expected to be more frequent and severe, with increasing risk to health and life. 1,4,5 The droughts and floods will increase in their frequency leading to more water stress. Alterations in agricultural, livestock and fisheries productivity will occur and Africa will face further food insecurity as well as possibly the spread of water-related diseases.According to Swain et al.,6 Zambezi basin is already experiencing drastic changes to its climate. In recent years the annual rainfall in the region decreased considerably and affected the annual flow levels. Over 128 million inhabitants that are part of the Zambezi River Basin are dependent on this river directly or indirectly as a source of food and water. In total the countries along the Zambezi Basin have 2.17 million km 2 of agricultural land, of which just 202,900 km 2 is arable. But as a consequence of increased agricultural land, there is also an increased need for irrigation. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has categorized the Zambezi as the river basin exhibiting the "worst" potential effects of climate change among 11 major African basins. Over the next century, climate change is expected to increase this variability, and the vulnerability of the basin and its hydropower dams. 5 The Zambezi River Basin has one of the most variable climates of any major river basin in the world and the runoff is highly sensitive to variations in climate, as small changes in rainfall pattern produce large changes in runoff. The hydrology of the basin is very important for hydropo...

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Section: Projected Changes In Temperaturementioning

confidence: 98%

Variability and trends of rainfall, precipitation and discharges over zambezi river basin, southern africa: review

Banze¹,

Guo²,

Shi³

2018

IJH

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“…While climate scenarios show a drying in the western region of South Africa (Schulze 2011), regionally downscaled climate change projections for the study area, indicated wetter conditions with higher average annual and summer rainfall and fewer days with low river flow. In addition, the frequency of dry and wet extremes could increase (Andersson et al 2009;Graham et al 2011).…”

Section: The Study Area and The Two Farming Communitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adaptation to climate change and other stressors among commercial and small-scale South African farmers

2012

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“…In applications, the outputs from RCMs are therefore used as input to force or initialize a hydrological model to address this issue (L. Li, Diallo, Xu, & Stordal, ; X. P. Li, Wang, Chen, Yang, & Wang, ). Currently, RCMs are widely used in studies of climatic effect on hydrology all over the world (Arnell, ; Graham et al, ; Gosling, ; L. Li, Diallo, et al, ; X. P. Li, Wang, et al, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hydrological projections of future climate change over the source region of Yellow River and Yangtze River in the Tibetan Plateau: A comprehensive assessment by coupling RegCM4 and VIC model

Lü

Wang

Shao

et al. 2018

Hydrological Processes

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Understanding climate change impacts on hydrological regime and assessing future water supplies are essential to effective water resources management and planning, which is particularly true for the Tibetan Plateau (TP), one of the most vulnerable areas to climate change. In this study, future climate change in the TP was projected for 2041–2060 by a high‐resolution regional climate model, RegCM4, under 3 representative concentration pathways (RCPs): 2.6, 4.5, and 8.5. Response of all key hydrological elements, that is, evapotranspiration, surface run‐off, baseflow, and snowmelt, to future climate in 2 typical catchments, the source regions of Yellow and Yangtze rivers, was further investigated by the variable infiltration capacity microscale hydrological model incorporated with a 2‐layer energy balance snow model and a frozen soil/permafrost algorithm at a 0.25°×0.25° spatial scale. The results reveal that (a) spatial patterns of precipitation and temperature from RegCM4 agree fairly well with the data from China Meteorological Forcing Dataset, indicating that RegCM4 well reproduces historical climatic information and thus is reliable to support future projection; (b) precipitation increase by 0–70% and temperature rise by 1–4 °C would occur in the TP under 3 RCPs. A clear south‐eastern–north‐western spatial increasing gradient in precipitation would be seen. Besides, under RCP8.5, the peak increase in temperature would approach to 4 °C in spring and autumn in the east of the TP; (c) evapotranspiration would increase by 10–60% in 2 source regions due to the temperature rise, surface run‐off and baseflow in higher elevation region would experience larger increase dominantly due to the precipitation increase, and streamflow would display general increases by more than 3% and 5% in the source regions of Yellow and Yangtze rivers, respectively; (d) snowmelt contributes 11.1% and 16.2% to total run‐off in the source regions of Yellow and Yangtze rivers, respectively, during the baseline period. In the source region of Yangtze River, snowmelt run‐off would become more important with increase of 17.5% and 18.3%, respectively, under RCP2.6 and RCP4.5 but decrease of 15.0% under RCP8.5.

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Using multiple climate projections for assessing hydrological response to climate change in the Thukela River Basin, South Africa

Cited by 38 publications

References 23 publications

Variability and trends of rainfall, precipitation and discharges over zambezi river basin, southern africa: review

Variability and trends of rainfall, precipitation and discharges over zambezi river basin, southern africa: review

Adaptation to climate change and other stressors among commercial and small-scale South African farmers

Hydrological projections of future climate change over the source region of Yellow River and Yangtze River in the Tibetan Plateau: A comprehensive assessment by coupling RegCM4 and VIC model

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