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Transboundary Climate Change Effects on the Hydrologic Regime in the Rio Conchos Basin
World Environmental and Water Resources Congress 2010, 2010
This paper presents results about potential effects of climate change on the hydrology and water resources in the Rio Conchos basin, with special emphasis on the transboundary water treaty signed between the US and Mexico in 1944. The Rio Conchos watershed, the main tributary of the lower portion of the bi-national Rio Grande/Bravo basin, is located in Chihuahua State in northern Mexico. The most relevant problem in the basin is the frequent occurrence of long drought periods, such as those that occurred in 1950s, 1960s, and the most recent from 1992 to 2003. Coupled with increased water demand and low irrigation efficiencies, the competition for water resources is high on both sides of the border. This paper reports on part of an assessment of expected climate change impacts in the basin. The methodology includes: 1) developing a model that represents the hydrological behavior of the basin; 2) analyzing downscaled climate data from five General Circulation Models (GCMs), for emission scenarios A2 and A1B; 3) simulating the basin under these climate change scenarios; 4) assessing the impacts of climate change on the hydrology and water resources in the basin; and 5) simulating and evaluating water management scenarios that could be used to adapt to the expected climate impacts in the coming decades. Some results from tasks (1) and (2) are reported here. These indicate a negative trend of precipitation in the area over the next few decades. Consequently, streamflow is projected to be lower by more than 18% at the basin outlet (Ojinaga station at the confluence with the Rio Grande) for scenario A2. Moreover, seasonal runoff analysis shows that winter and summer flows will be reduced more than 25% by the end of the century. Trend analysis also indicates negative trends over time. In addition, the change in runoff concentration and periodicity was explored in this research.
Hydro-economic consequences of climate change in the upper Rio Grande
Climate Research, 2012
Social, economic, and environmental systems in arid regions are vulnerable to disruptions in water supplies that are likely to accompany future climate changes. With a particular focus on the Rio Grande in New Mexico, this paper uses a hydro-economic model to integrate plausible changes in population and climate over the coming 70 yr. Specifically, projections of regional population growth are combined with alternative climate scenarios in order to simulate changes in streamflows, water supplies, and water demands within a framework that economizes water use. The study uses 3 climate change scenarios across 2 distinct future time periods to model runoff, water supply, and water demand changes, and estimate the economic and water-use consequences. Specifically, temperature and precipitation scenarios were generated using results from 3 general circulation models (GCMs), namely, HadCM3 (Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research Met Office), CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization of Australia), and the GFDL0 (Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), all of which were driven by the A1B emissions scenario from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Special Report on Emissions Scenarios. The WATBAL hydrologic model and the Rio Grande hydro-economic model were used to model the hydrologic and economic consequences, respectively. Findings indicate that agricultural water users could be most affected by curtailed deliveries and higher water scarcity. Municipal water users are likely to face higher delivery costs as competition for scarce surface water supplies rises; however, groundwater supplies provide an effective buffer for many of the municipal systems and help ameliorate price spikes.
2019
We develop and implement new tools for assessing the future of surface water supplies in downstream reaches of the Rio Grande, for which Elephant Butte Reservoir is the major storage reservoir. First, a normalization procedure is developed to adjust natural Rio Grande streamflows simulated by dynamical models in downstream reaches. The normalization accounts for upstream anthropogenic impairments to flow that are not considered in the model, thereby yielding downstream flows closer to observed values and more appropriate for use in assessments of future flows in downstream reaches. The normalization is applied to assess the potential effects of climate change on future water availability in the Rio Grande Basin at a gage just above Elephant Butte reservoir. Model simulated streamflow values were normalized force simulated flows to have the same mean and variance as observed flows over a historical baseline period, yielding normalization ratios that can be applied to future flows whe...
Earth Interactions
The middle Rio Grande is a vital source of water for irrigation in the region. Climate change is impacting regional hydrology and is likely to put additional stress on a water supply that is already stretched thin. To gain insight on the hydrologic effects of climate change on reservoir storage, a simple water balance model was used to simulate the Elephant Butte–Caballo Reservoir system (southern New Mexico). The water balance model was forced by hydrologic inputs generated by 97 climate simulations derived from CMIP5 global climate models, coupled to a surface hydrologic model. Results suggest that the percentage of years that reservoir releases satisfy agricultural water rights allocations over the next 50 years (2021–70) will decrease relative to the past 50 years (1971–2020). The modeling also projects an increase in multiyear drought events that hinder reservoir management strategies to maintain high storage levels. In most cases, changes in reservoir inflows from distant upst...
Potential impacts of global climate change on Tijuana River Watershed hydrology-An initial analysis
2010
During the past year, an investigation has been initiated regarding how future climate changes may impact the hydrology of the Tijuana River Watershed -a binational watershed. The study has used gridded observed daily precipitation and temperatures and downscaled daily precipitation and temperature projections from three global climate models (GCM) to drive the VIC macroscale hydrologic model. Sensitivity analysis using VIC suggests about 2% reduction of runoff for each 1% reduction in precipitation. A 1 o C increase in average temperature produces about 3% reduction of runoff. All three GCM simulations yield annual warming, with end-of-century temperature increases from approximately +1 o C under a lower emission scenario in the less responsive PCM1 to +3 o C in a higher emission scenario with the more responsive GFDL model. Climate projections suggest greater warming in the spring and summer months ranging between 2 o C to 3 o C under the higher emission scenario. Two of the three GCM simulations yield more frequent summer drying as gauged by VIC simulated soil moisture in the twenty-first century under the higher emission scenario. Summer soil moisture declines most, and most rapidly, in the later part of the twenty-first century. This initial evaluation provides perhaps the first direct estimates of the climate change impacts on the Tijuana River Watershed. However, transforming these results into a more useable projections and impacts will be a task for the future and will require collaboration and interaction between local stakeholders and the researchers.
Assessing climate change impacts on Upper Grande River Basin hydrology, Southeast Brazil
International Journal of Climatology, 2014
Brazilian electric power is mostly based on hydraulics sources through hydropower plant reservoirs that are fed by rivers located in Southeast Brazil. Possible changes in climate can affect the energy supply of the country. The objective of this work is to assess the possible changes in the hydrology of the Upper Grande River Basin (UGRB) under a future climate change scenario, using the Lavras Simulation of Hydrology (LASH) model forced by the outputs of the Eta model, a regional climate model, which was driven by HadCM3 A1B scenario for three time slices in the period between 2011 and 2099. Owing to the surface heterogeneity of the region, the hydrologic model was previously calibrated for four watersheds of the UGRB, which are located in its headwater region and evaluated against observational time series of the present climate period, 1961-1990. In the first future time slice, 2011-2040, the results showed a small reduction in the annual runoff , but for the other time slices, the trend changed to strong increase in most of the watersheds. The water budget in the region calculated from the Eta model agreed with the runoff trends, as water excess reduced in the first time slice and gradually increased towards the end of the century. The runoff components showed intraseasonal variability. The reduction of rains in the end of winter, the dry period in the region, and in the beginning of spring, may cause a change in the dynamics of the groundwater recharge, affecting the base flow, which can extend and intensify the flow recession period, and therefore affect the availability of water resources. On the other hand, the increase of rains during the summer, the rainy season of the region, caused an increase of the direct surface runoff , which can modify the flood regimes of the rivers in the region.
Revista Engenharia na Agricultura - Reveng, 2021
In the last century, changes in climate trends have been observed around the planet, which have resulted in alterations in the hydrological cycle. Studies that take into account the impact of climate change on water availability are of great importance, especially in Brazil’s case, where water from rivers, beyond being destined for human consumption, animal watering and economic activities, has a great participation in electricity generation. This fact makes its energy matrix vulnerable to variations in the climate system. In this study, a flow analysis for the head of the São Francisco river basin was performed between 2010 and 2100, considering the precipitation data of the CCSM4 climate model presented in the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Projections of future flow were performed for the scenarios RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, based on the SMAP rain-flow model, followed by a comparative analysis with the present climate. In general,...
Analysis of Scenarios to Adapt to Climate Change Impacts in the Rio Conchos Basin
World Environmental and Water Resources Congress 2011, 2011
This investigation assesses some water management scenarios to adapt to and mitigate the impacts of climate change on the water resources of the Rio Conchos Basin, a main tributary of the bi-national Rio Grande Basin. The water problems in the basin are characterized by recurrent long drought periods, increasing water demands, and low efficiencies; consequently, significant deficits are experienced, not only in the water system, but also for water delivery to the US-Mexico 1944 treaty. Future climate change will exacerbate the intense competition for water resources on both sites of the border. First, an assessment was made of climate change impacts on water resources of the basin under IPCC emission scenarios A2 and A1B for the period 2040-2099. Second, simulation and analysis was done of water management scenarios that have the potential to mitigate the effects of climate change. Because a reduction in river discharge is expected, these scenarios envision an increase in groundwater use, especially in drought periods, and a decrease in water demands and an improvement in water use efficiency. Under climate change conditions, results show that reliability and resiliency of the water system will tend to decrease; consequently, the vulnerability of the system increases over the time. Furthermore, the proposed scenarios indicate some adaptation measures that could make the system more reliable and less vulnerable in meeting water demands for irrigation and municipal uses.
Uncertainty in climate change impacts on water resources in the Rio Grande Basin, Brazil
Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 2011
We quantify uncertainty in the impacts of climate change on the discharge of the Rio Grande, a major tributary of the River Paraná in South America and one of the most important basins in Brazil for water supply and hydroelectric power generation. We consider uncertainty in climate projections associated with the SRES (greenhouse-gas) emission scenarios (A1b, A2, B1, B2) and increases in global mean air temperature of 1 to 6 • C for the HadCM3 GCM as well as uncertainties related to GCM structure. For the latter, multimodel runs using 6 GCMs (CCCMA CGCM31, CSIRO Mk30, IPSL CM4, MPI ECHAM5, NCAR CCSM30, UKMO HadGEM1) and HadCM3 as baseline, for a + 2 • C increase in global mean temperature. Pattern-scaled GCM-outputs are applied to a large-scale hydrological model (MGB-IPH) of the Rio Grande Basin. Based on simulations using HadCM3, mean annual river discharge increases, relative to the baseline period (1961-1990), by + 5% to + 10% under the SRES emissions scenarios and from + 8% to + 51% with prescribed increases in global mean air temperature of between 1 and 6 • C. Substantial uncertainty in projected changes to mean river discharge (− 28% to + 13%) under the 2 • C warming scenario is, however, associated with the choice of GCM. We conclude that, in the case of the Rio Grande Basin, the most important source of uncertainty derives from the GCM rather than the emission scenario or the magnitude of rise in mean global temperature.
European Scientific Journal, ESJ, 2014
Climate change in Northwest Mexico and its hydrological impact, including on water balance, water scarcity and flooding events, is a matter of great concern for the region due to its semiarid conditions. Changes in temperature, precipitation, and sea level would affect agriculture, farming, and aquaculture. The quality of water storages for human consumption may also be adversely affected. We evaluated possible changes in precipitation and temperature for the Rio Yaqui Basin in Sonora, Mexico and assessed the impact of those changes on water runoff, evapotranspiration and aquifer recharge for the years 2010 to 2099. For this purpose, we analyzed the results of a biascorrected and downscaled climate projection from the World Climate Research Programme's Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 3 (WCRP-CMIP3) multi-model dataset: UKMO-HadCM3 from the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction. The System Thinking Software STELLA 9.0.2 was used to dynamically visualize the effects of climate change on the Rio Yaqui Basin. In this software, the main components of water balance are simulated over the designated period of time with tools that include stocks and flow diagrams, causal loops, model equations and built-in functions. Climate change projections for the Rio Yaqui Basin showed highly variable runoff behaviors, indicating the possibility of frequent droughts, alternating with years of substantial runoff.