Assessment of climate change impact on water resources in the Pungwe river basin

Lotta Andersson; Patrick Samuelsson; Erik Kjellström

doi:10.1111/j.1600-0870.2010.00480.x

Assessment of climate change impact on water resources in the Pungwe river basin

Tellus

Volume 63 (2011): Issue 1

By: Lotta Andersson, Patrick Samuelsson and Erik Kjellström

Open Access

|Jan 2011

Abstract

The Rossby Centre Regional Climate Model (RCA3) and the hydrological model HBV were linked to assess climate change impacts on water resources in the Pungwe basin until 2050. RCA3 was capable of simulating the most important aspects of the climate for a control period at the regional scale. At the subbasin scale, additional scalingwas needed. Three climate change experiments using ECHAM4-A2, B2 and CCSM3-B2 as input to RCA3 were carried out. According to the simulations annual rainfall in 2050 would be reduced by approximately 10% with increasing interannual variability of rainfall and dry season river flow and later onset of the rainy season. The ECHAM4-A2 driven experiment did also indicate a slight increase of high flows. If the results indeed reflect the future, they will worsen the already critical situation for water resources, regarding both floods and droughts. Uncertainties, however in the downscaled scenarios make it difficult to prioritize adaptation options. This calls for inclusion of more climate change experiments, in an ensemble of climate scenarios possibly by using a combination of dynamical and statistical downscaling of general circulation models, as well as extending the simulations to 2100 to further ensure robustness of the signal..

References

Andersson , L. , Hellström , S. S. , Kjellstrom , E. , Losjö , K. , Rummulcainen , M. and co-authors . 2006 . Climate change impacts on water resources in the Pungwe drainage basin. SMHI Report 2006-24. Norrkiiping, Sweden, 86 pp .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Andersson , L. , Allcan Olsson , J. , Arheimer , B. and Jonsson , A . 2008 . Use of participatory scenario modelling as a platform in stakeholder dialogues. Water SA 34 ( 3 ) HELP Special Edition, 439 - 447 .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Arnell , N. W . 1998 . Climate change and water resources in Britain . Clim Change 39 , 83 – 110 .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Arnell , N. W . 2004 . Climate change and global water resources: SRES emission and socio-economic scenarios . Global Environ. Change 14 , 31 – 52 .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Arnell , N. W. , Hudson , D. A. and Jones , R.G . 2003 . Climate change scenarios from a regional climate model: estimating change of runoff in Southern Africa . J. Geophys. Res . 108 , 4519 – 4535 .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Balaz , S. , Fekete , M. , Vörösmarty , J. , Roads , J. O. and Willmott , C. J. 2003. Uncertainties in precipitation and their impacts on runoff estimates. J. Clim . 17 , 294 - 304 .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Blöschl , G. and Montanan , A . 2010 . Climate change impacts — throwing the dice? HydroL Process . 24 , 374 – 381 .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Busuioc , A. , Giorgi , F. , Bi , X. and Ionita , M . 2006 . Comparison of regional climate model and statistical downscaling simulations over different winter precipitation change scenarios over Romania . Theor AppL Climatol . 86 , 101 – 123 .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Chamuco , A. L . 1997 . Bué Maria dam, Mozambique: multipurpose reservoir operation using genetic algorithm techniques . MSc Thesis. IRE , Delft .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Champeaux , J. L. , Masson , V. and Chauvin , F . 2005 . ECOCUMAP: a global database of land surface parameters at 1 km resolution . Mete-oroL Appl . 12 , 29 – 32 .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Christensen , J. H. , Boberg , F ., Christensen , O. B. and Lucas-Picher , P. 2008 On the need for bias correction of regional climate change projections of temperature and precipitation. Geophys. Res. Lett . 35 , L20709, 6 pp. , 10.1029/2008GL035694 .
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Christensen , J. H. , Hewitson , B. , Busuioc , A. , Chen , A. , Gao , X. and co-authors . 2007 . Regional climate projections. In: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (eds S. Solomon , D. Qin , M. Manning , Z. Chen , M. Marquis and co-editors) . Cambridge University Press , Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Collins , W. D. , Bitz , C. M. , Blackmon , M. L. , Bonan , G. B. , Bretherton , C. S. and co-authors . 2006. The community climate system model: CCSM3. J. Clim . 19 , 2122-214 3 .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
de Wit , M. and Stanlciewich , J . 2006 . Changes in surface water supply across Africa with predicted climate change . Science 31 , 1917 – 1921 .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Engelbrecht , F. , Rautenbach , C. , McGregor , J. and Katzfey , J . 2002 . January and July climate simulations over the SADAC region using the limited-area model DARLAM . Water SA 28 , 361 – 374 .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Fowler , H. J. , Blenlcinsop , S. and Tebaldi , C . 2007 . Linking climate change modelling to impacts studies: recent advances in down-scaling techniques for hydrological modeling . Int. J. ClimatoL 27 , 1547 – 1578 .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Graham , L. P . 2004 . Climate change effects on river flow to the Baltic Sea . Ambio 33 , 235 – 241 .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Graham , R , Andreasson , J. and Carlsson , B . 2007 . Assessing climate change impacts on hydrology from an ensemble of regional climate models, model scales and linking methods-a case study on the Lule River basin . Clim. Change 81 , 293 – 307 .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Hudson , D. A. and Jones , R. G . 2002 . Regional climate model simula-tions of present-day and future climates in Southern Africa. Hadley Centre technical note 39. Met. Office, Hadley Centre, Bracknell, UK, 41 pp .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Jones , C. G. , Willen , U. , Ullerstig , A. and Hansson , U . 2004 . The Rossby Centre Regional Atmospheric Climate Model Part I: model climatol-ogy and performance for the present climate over Europe . Ambio 33 , 199 – 210 .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Kjellstrom , E. , Bärring , L. , Gollvilc , S. , Hansson , U. , Jones , C. and co-authors . 2005 . A 140-year simulation of European climate with the new version of the Rossby Centre regional atmospheric climate model (RCA3). Reports Meteorology and Climatology, 108, SMHI, Sweden, 54 pp .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Kundzewicz , Z. W. , Mata , L. J. , Arnell , N. W. , Doll , P. , Kabat , P. and co-authors . 2007 : Freshwater resources and their management. In: Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Con-tribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (eds M. L. Parry , O. F. Canziani , J. P. Palutikof , P. J. van der Linden and C. E. Hanson ). Cambridge University Press , Cambridge, UK , 173 - 210 .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Large W. G. and Danabasoglu , G . 2006 . Attribution and impacts of upper-ocean biases in CCSM3 . J. Climate 19 , 2347 – 2365 .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Lenderink G. , Buishand A. and van Deursen , W . 2007 . Estimates of future discharges of the river Rhine using two scenario methodologies: direct versus delta approach . HydroL Earth SysL Sc i . 11 , 1145 – 1159 .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Liden , R. and Harlin , J . 2000 . Analysis of conceptual rainfall-runoff modelling performance in different climates . J. HydroL 238 , 231 – 247 .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Lindstrom , G. , Johansson , B. , Persson , M. Gardelin M. and Bergstrom , S. 1997 . Development and test of the distributed HBV-96 hydrological model . J. Hydrol . 201 , 272 – 288 .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Lobell , D. B. , Marshall , B. B. , Tebaldi , C , Mastrandrea M. D. , Falcon W. P. and co-authors . 2008 . Prioritizing climate change adaptation needs for food security in 2030. Science 319 , 607 - 610 .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Losjö K. , Andersson , L. and Samuelsson , P . 2006 . Climate change im-pacts on water resources in the Pungwe drainage basin. SMHI Report 2006-45. Norrkoping, Sweden.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Mitchell , T. D. and Jones , P. D . 2005 . An improved method of con-structing a database of monthly climate observations and associated high-resolution grids . Int. J. ClimatoL 25 , 693 – 712 .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Nakiéenovié , N. and Swart , R. (Eds) 2000 . Emission Scenarios: A Spe- cial Report of Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press , Cambridge , UK , 599 pp .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Roecicner , E. , Bengtsson , L. , Feichter , J. , Lelieveld , J. and Rodhe , H 1999 . Transient climate change simulations with a coupled atmospheric-ocean GCM including the troposphere sulphur cycle . J. Clim . 12 , 3004 – 3032 .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Rosberg , J. and Andreasson , J . 2006 . From delta change to scaling and direct use of RCM output. In: European Conference on Impacts of Climate Change on Renewable Energy Sources , Reykjavik, Iceland, June 5-9,2006.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Rowell , D. P . 2006 . A demonstration of the uncertainty in projections of UK climate change resulting from regional model formulation . Clim. Change 79 , 243 – 257 .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Rummukainen , M . 2010 . State-of-the-art with regional climate models . WIREs Clim. Change 1 , 82 – 96 . 10.1002/wcc.008 .
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Ruosteenoja , K. , Carter , T. R. , Jyllid , K. and Tuomenvirta , H . 2003 . Future climate in world regions: an intercomparison of model-based projections for the new IPCC emission scenarios . The Finnish Envi-ronment 644 , Finnish Environment Institute , 83 pp .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Savijärvi , H . 1990 . A fast radiation scheme for mesoscale model and short-range forecast models . J. AppL Met . 29 , 437 – 447 .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Samuelsson , P. , Jones , C. , Willen , U. , Gollvilc , S. , Hansson , U. and co-authors . 2011 . The Rossby Centre Regional Climate Model RCA3: model description and performance. Tellus 63A , 4 - 23 .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Schiermeier , Q . 2010 . The real wholes in climate science . Nature 463 , 284 – 287 .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Schulze , R. E . 2000 . Modelling hydrological response to land uses and climate change. A Southern African perspective . Ambio 29 , 12 – 22 .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Sillmann , J. and Roeckner , E . 2008 . Indices for extreme events in projections of anthropogenic climate change . Clim. Change 86 , 83 – 104 .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
SWECO and Associates . 2004 . Development of the Pungwe River basin joint integrated water resources management strategy . The Pungwe River Monograph , Main report , 67 pp .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Terink , W. , Hurkmans , R. T.W.L , Torfs , P. J. J. F. and Uijlenhoet , R . ( 2010 ). Evaluation of a bias correction method applied to downscaled precipitation and temperature reanalysis data for the Rhine basin . HydroL Earth SysL Sci. Discuss . 7 , 221 – 267 .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Teutschbein , C. and Seibert , J . 2010 . Regional climate models for hy-drological impact studies at the catchment-scale: a review of recent modeling strategies . Geography Compass 4 , 834 – 860 .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Timmerman , J. G. , Pahl-Wostl , C. and Moltgen , C. (Eds) 2008 . The Adaptiveness of IWRM: Analysing European IWRM Research . IVVA Publishing, London , UK .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Uppala , S. M. , Milberg , P. W. , Simmons , A. J. , Andrae , U. , da Costa Bechtold , V. and co-authors . 2005. The ERA-40 Re-analysis. A.J: Roy. MeteoroL Soc . 131 , 2961-301 2 .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Willmott , C. J. and Matsuura , K . 2001 . Terrestrial Air Tem-perature and Precipitation: Monthly and Annual Time Se-ries (1950-1999) Version 1.02. Available at: http://climate.geog. udel.eduk-climate/html_pages/README.ghcn_ts2 . html (Accessed in April 22 , 2010 ).
Search in Google Scholar Back to article

Articles in this issue

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0870.2010.00480.x | Journal eISSN: 3035-9554

Journal RSS Feed

Language: English

Page range: 138 - 157

Submitted on: Jan 18, 2010

Accepted on: Aug 23, 2010

Published on: Jan 1, 2011

Published by: Stockholm University Press

In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services

© 2011 Lotta Andersson, Patrick Samuelsson, Erik Kjellström, published by Stockholm University Press
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Volume 63 (2011): Issue 1