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Assessment of the Impact of Projected Climate Change on Streamflow and Groundwater Recharge in a River Basin

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Managing Water Resources under Climate Uncertainty

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Abstract

In this work, a general approach for evaluating the impacts of projected climate change on streamflow and groundwater recharge in a river basin located in the humid tropical zone of India is presented. The projections of a GCM for two important climate variables, viz. rainfall and temperature for two scenarios, A2 and B2, are downscaled by a RCM to predict future climate in the river basin and then input into a physically based hydrologic model, SWAT, to evaluate the impact of projected climate change on streamflow in the river basin. Also, a simple conceptual semi-distributed model to assess the impact of projected climate change on direct groundwater recharge is developed and used to predict groundwater recharge in the A2 and B2 scenarios. This model is based on the water balance concept, linking the atmospheric and hydrogeologic parameters to different hydrological processes and estimates daily water table fluctuations. Results show that in the A2 scenario, for the southwest monsoon period, there is an average increase in temperature of 2 °C and a decrease in rainfall of 11.50 %. Predictions by SWAT indicate an increase in potential evapotranspiration of 1.14 % and a decrease in streamflow of 7.53 % from present-day average values. For the same period, in the B2 scenario, there is an average increase in temperature of 1 °C and a decrease in rainfall of 8.79 %. SWAT predictions show an increase in potential evapotranspiration of 1.12 % and a decrease in streamflow of 4.62 %. Similar trends are predicted for the north-east monsoon period also. Groundwater recharge is predicted to decrease by 7 and 4 % in the A2 and B2 scenarios, respectively.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), Government of United Kingdom, for sponsoring the joint Indo–UK programme on Climate Change and the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), Government of India, for coordinating its implementation. Thanks are due to the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, UK Meteorological Office, for making available the regional model—PRECIS. Support of the PRECIS simulation datasets is provided by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune.

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  1. Department of Civil Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Calicut, 673601, Kerala, India

    Santosh G. Thampi

  2. Department of Civil Engineering, Vedavyasa Institute of Technology, Calicut, Kerala, India

    K. Y. Raneesh

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  1. Santosh G. Thampi
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Correspondence to Santosh G. Thampi .

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  1. Water Engineering and Management, Asian Institute of Technology, Klong Luang, Pathum Thani, Thailand

    Sangam Shrestha

  2. Food Engineering & Bioprocess Technology, Asian Institute of Technology, Klong Luang, Thailand

    Anil K. Anal

  3. School of Env., Res. and Development, Asian Institute of Technology, City, Thailand

    P. Abdul Salam

  4. The Netherlands Ntl. Committee IHP-HWRP, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Michael van der Valk

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Thampi, S.G., Raneesh, K.Y. (2015). Assessment of the Impact of Projected Climate Change on Streamflow and Groundwater Recharge in a River Basin. In: Shrestha, S., Anal, A., Salam, P., van der Valk, M. (eds) Managing Water Resources under Climate Uncertainty. Springer Water. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10467-6_8

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