Modelling of climate-induced hydrologic changes in the Lake Winnipeg watershed (original) (raw)
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Modelling Climate Impacts on Hydrologic Processes in the Lake Winnipeg Watershed
2010
This paper presents results of spatial and temporal analyses of hydro-climatic regimes and simulation of climate-induced hydrologic changes in the Lake Winnipeg watershed. The hydrologic and agricultural chemical yield model, Soil & Water Assessment Tool (SWAT), was employed for the simulation of hydrologic scenarios in the Upper Assiniboine catchment of the Lake Winnipeg watershed, Canada. Analyses of future climate projections from three regional climate models (RCMs) corresponding to the SRES's A2 emission scenario, indicate that the total annual precipitation will increase by 5.5-7.5 % in 2041-2070 compared to 1971-2000, while temperature will increase by 2.02.9° C during the same period. Hydrologic scenarios simulated with the SWAT model project consistent changes in future snowmelt driven runoff, with an earlier onset of spring snowmelt and discharge peaks. Some of the results also show increases in discharge peaks. These changes can be expected to have implications on wat...
Journal of Great Lakes Research, 2012
While the cause of eutrophication in Lake Winnipeg is known to be excess nutrient loading from watershed sources, few comprehensive studies have attempted to quantify the effects of changes in temperature and precipitation on the hydrological and nutrient transport regimes in the region. In this paper, results of spatial and temporal analyses of observed and regional climate model (RCM) projections of precipitation and airtemperature regimes within the Lake Winnipeg watershed (LWW) are presented. The Mann-Kendall trend analysis of observed data over a recent time period of 1961 to 2003 shows that, while there has been a consistent increasing trend in the mean annual air temperature in the region, there is no significant trend in annual precipitation. Seasonally, precipitation exhibited a significantly decreasing trend in the Saskatchewan and Assiniboine river basins during the winter and an increasing trend in part of the Red and Assiniboine river basins during summer season. Air temperatures showed significant increases in winter, spring and summer throughout the LWW. Future climate projections from three RCMs driven by the SRES's A2 emission scenario indicate that by the 2050s (2041-2070), total annual precipitation (air temperature) increases by 5.5-7.7% (2.1-2.8°C) compared to the 1980s . These observed and projected changes in the climate regimes of the LWW will have important implications for the hydrology and nutrient transport regimes of this region, which is the subject of additional investigation in a companion paper of this special issue . Crown
Climatic Change, 2011
The current body of research in western North America indicates that water resources in southern Alberta are vulnerable to climate change impacts. The objective of this research was to parameterize and verify the ACRU agro-hydrological modeling system for a small watershed in southern Alberta and subsequently simulate the change in future hydrological responses over 30-year simulation periods. The ACRU model successfully simulated monthly streamflow volumes (r 2 = 0.78), based on daily simulations over 27 years. The delta downscaling technique was used to perturb the 1961-1990 baseline climate record from a range of global climate model (GCM) projections to provide the input for future hydrological simulations. Five future hydrological regimes were compared to the 1961-1990 baseline conditions to determine the average net effect of change scenarios on the hydrological regime of the Beaver Creek watershed over three 30-year time periods (starting in 2010, 2040 and 2070). The annual projections of a warmer and mostly wetter climate in this region resulted in a shift of the seasonal streamflow distribution with 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 , for four of the five scenarios. Simulations of actual evapotranspiration and mean annual runoff showed a slight increase, which was attributed to warmer winters, resulting in more winter runoff and snowmelt events.
Integrated Hydrological Modeling of Climate Change Impacts in a Snow‐Influenced Catchment
Groundwater, 2018
The potential impact of climate change on water resources has been intensively studied for different regions and climates across the world. In regions where winter processes such as snowfall and melting play a significant role, anticipated changes in temperature might significantly affect hydrological systems. To address this impact, modifications have been made to the fully integrated surface‐subsurface flow model HydroGeoSphere (HGS) to allow the simulation of snow accumulation and melting. The modified HGS model was used to assess the potential impact of climate change on surface and subsurface flow in the Saint‐Charles River catchment, Quebec (Canada) for the period 2070 to 2100. The model was first developed and calibrated to reproduce observed streamflow and hydraulic heads for current climate conditions. The calibrated model was then used with three different climate scenarios to simulate surface flow and groundwater dynamics for the 2070 to 2100 period. Winter stream dischar...
The impact of climate change on water availability in two river basins located in central Canada is investigated. Several statistical downscaling methods are used to generate temperature and precipitation scenarios from the third-generation Canadian Coupled General Circulation Model, forced with different emission scenarios. The hydrological model SLURP is used to simulate runoff. All downscaling methods agree that temperature will increase with time and that precipitation will also increase, although there is considerably more uncertainty in the magnitude of precipitation change. The study concludes that the change in total annual precipitation does not necessarily translate into similar changes in runoff. The seasonal distribution of precipitation changes is important for runoff, as is the increase in evapotranspiration. The choice of downscaling method appears to have a greater impact on runoff projections than the choice of emission scenario. Therefore, it is important to consider several downscaling methods when evaluating the impact of climate change on runoff.
Water
This study examines the hydrological sensitivity of an agroforested catchment to changes in temperature and precipitation. A physically based hydrological model was created using the Cold Regions Hydrological Modelling platform to simulate the hydrological processes over 23 years in the Acadie River Catchment in southern Québec. The observed air temperature and precipitation were perturbed linearly based on existing climate change projections, with warming of up to 8 °C and an increase in total precipitation up to 20%. The results show that warming causes a decrease in blowing snow transport and sublimation losses from blowing snow, canopy-intercepted snowfall and the snowpack. Decreasing blowing snow transport leads to reduced spatial variability in peak snow water equivalent (SWE) and a more synchronized snow cover depletion across the catchment. A 20% increase in precipitation is not sufficient to counteract the decline in annual peak SWE caused by a 1 °C warming. On the other ha...
Following from Parts I and II of this series (this issue), some common approaches for developing and assessing future scenarios of water availability are reviewed, along with recent case studies of Canadian watersheds. The results of future changes in drought related to climate change are influenced by the choice of indicators. For the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), small changes in drought frequency and severity are projected over southern Canada, reflecting the influence of increases in future annual precipitation only. However, assessments using the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) reveal dramatic increases in the potential for future droughts since this indicator incorporates the combined influences of higher temperatures, soil moisture capacity and precipitation to estimate evapotranspiration. Regarding projected changes in runoff, watersheds in British Columbia tend to show increases in annual and winter runoff. Some watersheds show projected decreases in summer runoff. In the southern Prairies, most watersheds show projected decreases in annual and summer runoff. In Ontario and Quebec, results are mixed. Lake levels in the Great Lakes are projected to decline under most scenarios, but results differ between regional and global climate model-based scenarios due to differences in how lake evaporation is calculated. In New Brunswick, Labrador and northern Quebec, streamflow is projected to increase. Uncertainties in future projections emerge due to differences between climate scenario generating methods, and between hydrologic models used for the assessments. This paper concludes with some thoughts on addressing important research questions related to future scenarios of water availability in Canada. For scenario-based assessments, hydrologic model inter-comparisons might yield some useful insights into uncertainties in model structure that affect evaporation, evapotranspiration and snowmelt calculations. Scenarios developed for assessments should include both future climate and projected land use/cover changes and, where necessary, integration of potential reduction in glacier volume. Finally, as scenarios from regional climate models become more readily available, there may be more opportunity to explore how runoff projections could be applied to basin-scale routing models.
Sustainability, 2018
This paper focuses on understanding the effects of projected climate change on streamflow dynamics of the Grand and Thames rivers of the Northern Lake Erie (NLE) basin. A soil water assessment tool (SWAT) model is developed, calibrated, and validated in a base-period. The model is able to simulate the monthly streamflow dynamics with ‘Good’ to ‘Very Good’ accuracy. The calibrated and validated model is then subjected with daily bias-corrected future climatic data from the Canadian Regional Climate Model (CanRCM4). Five bias-correction methods and their 12 combinations were evaluated using the Climate Model data for hydrologic modeling (CMhyd). Distribution mapping (DM) performed the best and was used for further analysis. Two future time-periods and two IPCC AR5 representative concentration pathways (RCPs) are considered. Results showed marked temporal and spatial variability in precipitation (−37% to +63%) and temperature (−3 °C to +14 °C) changes, which are reflected in evapotrans...
Runoff Projection from an Alpine Watershed in Western Canada: Application of a Snowmelt Runoff Model
Water, 2021
The rising global temperature is shifting the runoff patterns of snowmelt-dominated alpine watersheds, resulting in increased cold season flows, earlier spring peak flows, and reduced summer runoff. Projections of future runoff are beneficial in preparing for the anticipated changes in streamflow regimes. This study applied the degree–day Snowmelt Runoff Model (SRM) in combination with the MODIS to remotely sense snow cover observations for modeling the snowmelt runoff response of the Upper Athabasca River Basin in western Canada. After assessing its ability to simulate the observed historical flows, the SRM was applied for projecting future runoff in the basin. The inclusion of a spatial and temporal variation in the degree–day factor (DDF) and separation of the DDF for glaciated and non-glaciated areas were found to be important for improved simulation of varying snow conditions over multiple years. The SRM simulations, driven by an ensemble of six statistically downscaled GCM run...
Journal of Environmental Management, 2015
Both climate and land use changes can influence water quality and quantity in different ways. Thus, for predicting future water quality and quantity trends, simulations should ideally account for both projected climate and land use changes. In this paper, land use projections and climate change scenarios were integrated with a hydrological model to estimate the relative impact of climate and land use projections on a suite of water quality and quantity endpoints for a Canadian watershed. Climatic time series representing SRES change scenario A2 were generated by downscaling the outputs of the Canadian Regional Climate Model (version 4.1.1) using a combination of quantileequantile transformation and nearest neighbor search. The SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) model was used to simulate streamflow, nitrogen and phosphorus loading under different climate and land use scenarios. Results showed that a) climate change will drive up maximum monthly streamflow, nitrate loads, and organic phosphorus loads, while decreasing organic nitrogen and nitrite loads; and b) land use changes were found to drive the same water quality/quantity variables in the same direction as climate change, except for organic nitrogen loads, for which the effects of the two stressors had a reverse impact on loading.