This paper presents the first basin-wide assessment of the potential impact of climate change on the hydrology and production of the Ganges system, undertaken as part of the World Bank's Ganges Strategic Basin Assessment. A series of modeling efforts -downscaling of climate projections, water balance calculations, hydrological simulation and economic optimization -inform the assessment. We find that projections of precipitation across the basin, obtained from 16 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change-recognized General Circulation Models are highly variable, and lead to considerable differences in predictions of mean flows in the main stem of the Ganges and its tributaries. Despite uncertainties in predicted future flows, they are not, however, outside the range of natural variability in this basin, except perhaps at the tributary or sub-catchment levels. We also find that the hydropower potential associated with a set of 23 large dams in Nepal remains high across climate models, largely because annual flow in the tributary rivers greatly exceeds the storage capacities of these projects even in dry scenarios. The additional storage and smoothing of flows provided by these infrastructures translates into enhanced water availability in the dry season, but the relative value of this water for the purposes of irrigation in the Gangetic plain, and for low flow augmentation to Bangladesh under climate change, is unclear.
Applications and Water Resources program manager Bradley Doorn. This is the second such application workshop organized by SAWG to explore how best to maximize the user-readiness of the SWOT data after launch in 2021. Thus, the workshop was appropriately titled "2 nd SWOT Application User Workshop: Engaging the User Community for Advancing Societal Applications of the Surface Water Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission." More than fifty participants attended the workshop over the period of two days with many attending remotely as time permitted. These participants represented various stakeholder agencies from the public and private sector that deal with water issues such as U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE),
The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work. The boundaries, colors, denominations, and other information shown on any map in this work do not imply any judgment on the part of The World Bank concerning the legal status of any territory or the endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.