Regional Hydrological Response To Climate Change

This volume arises from the work of the International Geographical Union Working Group on Regional Hydrological Response to Climate Change and Global Warming under the chairmanship of Professor Changming Liu (1992-96). The book consists mostly of peer-reviewed papers delivered at the Working Group's first three scientific meetings held in Washington, D.C. (1992), Lhasa, Tibet (1993) and Moscow (1995). These have been supplemented by a few additional chapters that have been specifically commissioned in order to give a well-rounded coverage of the global and scientific aspects of the topic. As editors, we have sought to balance state-of-the-art reviews of methodology and regional research with detailed studies of specific countries and river basins. In the spirit of the IGU, we have devoted particular effort to encouraging contributions from scientists in the non-English-speaking world. These chapters provide valuable evidence of recent climatic change and predictions of future hydrological impacts from parts of the world where little detailed work has been conducted hitherto. They provide much valuable information that is new and interesting to an international audience and is otherwise very difficult or impossible to acquire. It is hoped that the present volume will be not only a record of current achievements, but also a stimulus to further hydrological research as the detail and spatial resolution of Global Climate Models improves. One notable aspect that emerges from a number of the contributions is that many, though by no means all, recent hydrological trends are in line with global warming predictions.

"Climate change is beginning to have effects on climate, weather and resource availability in ways that need to be anticipated when planning for the future. In particular, changes in rainfall patterns and temperature may impact the intensity or schedule of water availability. Also the retreat of tropical glaciers, the drying of unique Andean wetland ecosystems, as well as increased weather variability and weather extremes will affect water regulation. These changes have the potential to impact the energy and other sectors, such as agriculture, and could have broader economic effects.Anticipating the impacts of climate change is a new frontier. There are few examples of predictions of the impact of climate change on resource availability and even fewer examples of the applications of such predictions to planning for sustainable economic development. However, having access to an effective methodology would allow planners and policy makers to better plan for adaptation measures to address the consequences of climate change on the power and water sectors.This report presents a summary of the efforts to develop methodological tools for the assessment of climate impacts on surface hydrology in the Peruvian Andes. It is targeted to decision makers in Peru and in other countries to give them guidance on how to choose available and suitable tools and make an assessment of climate impacts on water regulation."

The current body of research in western North America indicates that water resources in the Oldman Basin are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. The objectives of this thesis were to parameterize and verify the ACRU hydrological modelling system for the 256 km2 Beaver Creek watershed, a tributary to the Oldman River. The ACRU model successfully simulated monthly volumes of the observed hydrological record (r2 =0.78), and simulated the behaviour of the mean annual hydrograph with sufficient accuracy to assess the mean change in future hydrological response over 30-year simulation periods. A range of global climate model (GCM) projections were used to perturb the 1961-1990 baseline climate record using the delta downscaling technique, which resulted in the input for future hydrological simulations. Five potential future hydrological regimes were compared to the 1961-1990 baseline conditions to determine the net effect of climate change on the hydrological regime of the Beaver Creek catchment over three time periods of 2020, 2050 and 2080. Despite annual projections for a warmer and wetter climate in this region, the majority of the simulations indicated that the seasonal changes in climate resulted in a shift of the seasonal streamflow distribution. The results indicated an increase in winter and spring streamflow volumes and a reduction of summer and fall streamflow volumes over all time periods, relative to the baseline conditions (1961-1990) in 4 of the 5 scenarios.

Describes the water management community¿s needs for climate change info. and tools to support long-term planning. Technical specialists and program managers have worked with their planners, water operators, and environmental compliance managers to identify the information and tools most relevant to their programs. They also have engaged and consulted with other Federal, State, and local agencies and stakeholder groups that have a role in water and water-related resource management to identify complementary priorities and individual perspectives. This report will help focus research and technology efforts to address info. and tools gaps relevant to the water management user community. Charts and tables. This is a print on demand report.