HR: 1340h
AN: H43A-0964    [Abstracts]
TI: The Impacts of Climate Change on Hydrology and Water Resources in Zayandeh-Rood Basin - Iran
AU: * Abrishamchi, A
EM: abrisham@sharif.edu
AF: Dept. of Civil Engineering,Sharif Univ. of Technology, Azadi Ave., Tehran, Teh 1458889, Iran (Islamic Republic of)
AU: Azaranfar, A
AF: Dept. of Civil Engineering,Sharif Univ. of Technology, Azadi Ave., Tehran, Teh 1458889, Iran (Islamic Republic of)
AU: S.Ghasemi, S
AF: Dept. of Civil Engineering,Sharif Univ. of Technology, Azadi Ave., Tehran, Teh 1458889, Iran (Islamic Republic of)
AU: Tajrishy, M
EM: tajrishy@sharif.edu
AF: Dept. of Civil Engineering,Sharif Univ. of Technology, Azadi Ave., Tehran, Teh 1458889, Iran (Islamic Republic of)
AU: Marino, M A
EM: mamarino@ucdavis.edu
AF: LAWR Dept. and Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UC Davis, Davis, Ca 95616, United States
AU: Abrishamchi, A
EM: abrisham@ucdavis.edu
AF: Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UC Davis, Davis, Ca 95616, United States
AB: Increasing concentration of greenhouse gases may have significant consequences on the global climate. If climate change occurs, changes in temperature and precipitation may have profound impacts on hydrologic processes, water resources and water uses such as agriculture. In Zayandeh-River Basin of Iran, agriculture is an important economic activity and is the main water user. Climate change may exacerbate the already contentious water supply situation in the basin. This paper focuses on the impact of climate change on hydrology and water resources of Zayandeh-Rood river basin. GCM models do not have suitable spatial resolution for regional assessment, so GCM outputs should be downscaled to the regional scale. In this paper, statistical downscaling is used in two difference methods (probability and regression) for downscaling the CGCM2 model outputs under A2 and B2 scenarios for two periods: 2021-2050 (immediate future) and 2071-2100 (far future). Temperature and precipitation projections from the downscaled GCM outputs were used as inputs to the hydrologic model. To study the impact of climate change on the water resources in the basin, an operational model was used to simulate the operation of the Zayandeh-Rood reservoir under different hydrologic projections. Both scenarios showed similar increases in temperature while they have less agreement in the amount and rate of precipitation they projected. The results of this study also show that the water resources in the study area are sensitive to changes in temperature and precipitation projections. The reservoir simulations provide information on the timing and rate of changes expected in water supply. The methodology developed can be used to predict the impacts of new or updated predictions of climate change. Vulnerability to climate change may be characterized as a function of three components: sensitivity, exposure, and adaptive capacity. In this study, only the first component and infrastructure as an indicator of adaptive capacity were considered. To assess the true vulnerability, other components and factors should be considered as well.
DE: 1807 Climate impacts
DE: 1880 Water management (6334)
DE: 6620 Science policy (0485)
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting