Future climate change will likely impact the multiple freshwater ecosystem services (fES) provided by catchments through their landscapes and river systems. However, there is high spatio-temporal uncertainty on those impacts linked to climate change uncertainty and the natural and anthropogenic interdependencies of water management systems. This study identifies current and future spatial patterns of fES production in a highly managed water resource system in northern India to inform the design and assessment of plausible adaptation measures to enhance fES production in the catchment under uncertain climate change. A water resource systems modelling approach is used to evaluate fES across the full range of plausible future scenarios, to identify the (worst-case) climate change scenarios triggering the greatest impacts and assess the capacity of adaptation to enhance fES. Results indicate that the current and future states of the fES depend on the spatial patterns of climate change and the impacts of infrastructure management on river flows. Natural zones deliver more regulating and cultural services than anthropized areas, although they are more climate-sensitive. The implementation of a plausible adaptation strategy only manages to slightly enhance fES in the system with respect to no adaptation. These results demonstrate that water resource systems models are powerful tools to capture complex system dependencies and inform the design of robust catchment management measures. They also highlight that mitigation and more ambitious adaptation strategies are needed to offset climate change impacts in highly climate-sensitive catchments.
<p>The impact of changing climate on the Himalayas strongly influences the amount and timing of water available in the region. Millions of people in the downstream regions of Himalayan catchments depend on streams and rivers originating from the region for domestic consumption, livelihood, agriculture, and hydropower (Immerzeel et al., 2020). Many studies have highlighted the importance of snow and glacier melt towards water availability at the basin scale (Khanal et al., 2021; Prasad et al., 2019). However, the water availability at a much finer scale (i.e., to individual mountain communities) remains unquantified. Understanding the mountain communities' water availability is imperative to mitigate climate change impacts and ensure their water and food security (Kulkarni et al., 2021). In the present study, we aim to estimate the water availability to the communities in the Parvati Basin of Western Himalaya, including the contributions of snow and glacier melt, rainfall, and groundwater to runoff. The catchment has a total area of 1754 km<sup>2</sup> and consists of 279 glaciers which cover an area of 395.6 km<sup>2</sup>. The volume of the glaciers and their mass balance are computed to understand the present state of the glaciers. The volume of the glaciers is estimated as 21.3 &#177; 3.8 km<sup>3</sup> using laminar flow and scaling methods. The mass balance of the glaciers was estimated using the improved accumulation area ratio (IAAR) method as -0.44 &#177; 0.23 m w.e.a<sup>&#8722;1</sup>. We simulate the daily runoff in the catchment using the Spatial Processes in Hydrology (SPHY) model, which is a fully distributed cryospheric-hydrological model. The volume and mass balance results are used to define the model's initial conditions and constrain mass loss during the simulations. Further, the study also aims to understand the role played by seasonal snow cover on the water available to the mountain communities. The outcome of this assessment would help to facilitate making informed hydrological and agricultural policies to mitigate the impact of climate change.</p>
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