An ensemble approach to assess hydrological models' contribution to uncertainties in the analysis of climate change impact on water resources

Velázquez, J. A.; Schmid, Josef; Ricard, Simon; Muerth, Markus; St-Denis, B. Gauvin; Minville, Marie; Chaumont, Diane; Caya, Daniel; Ludwig, Ralf; Turcotte, Richard

doi:10.5194/hess-17-565-2013

Cited by 141 publications

(105 citation statements)

References 50 publications

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“…They concluded that model structures and parameter identification are important sources of uncertainty under a changing climate. Velázquez et al (2013) confirmed that the selection of a hydrological model affects climate change impacts conclusions, especially for low flows on two dissimilar catchments, in Germany and Canada.…”

Section: G Seiller and F Anctil: Climate Change Impacts On The Hydrsupporting

confidence: 59%

“…Vicuna et al, 2007;Minville et al, 2008;Kay et al, 2009;Boyer et al, 2010;Görgen et al, 2010;Teng et al, 2012;Jung et al, 2012) while others focused on specific ones (e.g. Ludwig et al, 2009;Gardner, 2009;Poulin et al, 2011;Bae et al, 2011;Teng et al, 2012;Velázquez et al, 2013). However, all these works are based on ensemble intercomparison and advocate the necessity of assessing uncertainties before, for example, comparing river discharges over reference (REF) and future (FUT) periods.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Climate change impacts on the hydrologic regime of a Canadian river: comparing uncertainties arising from climate natural variability and lumped hydrological model structures

Seiller¹,

Anctil²

2014

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Diagnosing the impacts of climate change on water resources is a difficult task pertaining to the uncertainties arising from the different modelling steps. Lumped hydrological model structures contribute to this uncertainty as well as the natural climate variability, illustrated by several members from the same Global Circulation Model. In this paper, the hydroclimatic modelling chain consists of twenty-four potential evapotranspiration formulations, twenty lumped conceptual hydrological models, and seven snowmelt modules. These structures are applied on a natural Canadian subcatchment to address related uncertainties and compare them to the natural internal variability of simulated climate system as depicted by five climatic members. Uncertainty in simulated streamflow under current and projected climates is assessed. They rely on interannual hydrographs and hydrological indicators analysis. Results show that natural climate variability is the major source of uncertainty, followed by potential evapotranspiration formulations and hydrological models. The selected snowmelt modules, however, do not contribute much to the uncertainty. The analysis also illustrates that the streamflow simulation over the current climate period is already conditioned by the tools' selection. This uncertainty is propagated to reference simulations and future projections, amplified by climatic members. These findings demonstrate the importance of opting for several climatic members to encompass the important uncertainty related to the climate natural variability, but also of selecting multiple modelling tools to provide a trustworthy diagnosis of the impacts of climate change on water resources.

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Section: G Seiller and F Anctil: Climate Change Impacts On The Hydrsupporting

confidence: 59%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate change impacts on the hydrologic regime of a Canadian river: comparing uncertainties arising from climate natural variability and lumped hydrological model structures

Seiller¹,

Anctil²

2014

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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“…A common finding is that hydrological model uncertainty is less important than other uncertainty sources (i.e. GCM), but cannot be ignored (Prudhomme and Davies, 2009;Teng et al, 2012;Thompson et al, 2013;Velázquez et al, 2013). However, for certain hydrological indicators (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intercomparison of different uncertainty sources in hydrological climate change projections for an alpine catchment (upper Clutha River, New Zealand)

Jobst

Kingston

Cullen

et al. 2018

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. As climate change is projected to alter both temperature and precipitation, snow-controlled mid-latitude catchments are expected to experience substantial shifts in their seasonal regime, which will have direct implications for water management. In order to provide authoritative projections of climate change impacts, the uncertainty inherent to all components of the modelling chain needs to be accounted for. This study assesses the uncertainty in potential impacts of climate change on the hydro-climate of a headwater sub-catchment of New Zealand's largest catchment (the Clutha River) using a fully distributed hydrological model (WaSiM) and unique ensemble encompassing different uncertainty sources: general circulation model (GCM), emission scenario, bias correction and snow model. The inclusion of snow models is particularly important, given that (1) they are a rarely considered aspect of uncertainty in hydrological modelling studies, and (2) snow has a considerable influence on seasonal patterns of river flow in alpine catchments such as the Clutha. Projected changes in river flow for the 2050s and 2090s encompass substantial increases in streamflow from May to October, and a decline between December and March. The dominant drivers are changes in the seasonal distribution of precipitation (for the 2090s +29 to +84 % in winter) and substantial decreases in the seasonal snow storage due to temperature increase. A quantitative comparison of uncertainty identified GCM structure as the dominant contributor in the seasonal streamflow signal (44-57 %) followed by emission scenario (16-49 %), bias correction (4-22 %) and snow model (3-10 %). While these findings suggest that the role of the snow model is comparatively small, its contribution to the overall uncertainty was still found to be noticeable for winter and summer.

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“…In regard of the climate models, also the choice of GCM and RCM can have a large impact on the results and generally an ensemble of projectionsencompassing different GCMs, RCMs and emission scenarios -is recommended in hydrological climate change impact assessment (Hewitt and Griggs 2004;Collins 2007). A clear distinction on the relative effects of hydrological model (HM) uncertainty and climate model (CM) uncertainty to the projected discharge uncertainty has not been concluded; results vary between studies depending on catchment climate and hydrological variable studied (Hagemann et al 2013;Velázquez et al 2013;Vetter et al 2015). However, the impact of HM structural uncertainty on projected discharge changes can be significant due to, for instance, the differences in the representation of evapotranspiration and snow/ice accumulation/melting processes (Poulin et al 2011;Viviroli et al 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysis of hydrological extremes at different hydro-climatic regimes under present and future conditions

et al. 2016

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We investigate simulated hydrological extremes (i.e., high and low flows) under the present and future climatic conditions for five river basins worldwide: the Ganges, Lena, Niger, Rhine, and Tagus. Future projections are based on five GCMs and four emission scenarios. We analyse results from the HYPE, mHM, SWIM, VIC and WaterGAP3 hydrological models calibrated and validated to simulate each river. The use of different impact models and future projections allows for an assessment of the uncertainty of future impacts. The analysis of extremes is conducted for four different time horizons: reference (1981-2010), early-century (2006-2035), mid-century (2036-2065) and end-century (2070-2099). In addition, Sen's non-parametric estimator of slope is used to calculate the magnitude of trend in extremes, whose statistical significance is assessed by the Mann-Kendall test. Overall, the impact of climate change is more severe at the end of the century and particularly in dry regions. High flows are generally sensitive to changes in precipitation, however sensitivity varies between the basins. Finally, results show that conclusions in climate change impact Center for Global Change and Water Cycle, Hohai University, Nanjing, China studies can be highly influenced by uncertainty both in the climate and impact models, whilst the sensitivity to climate modelling uncertainty becoming greater than hydrological model uncertainty in the dry regions.

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An ensemble approach to assess hydrological models' contribution to uncertainties in the analysis of climate change impact on water resources

Cited by 141 publications

References 50 publications

Climate change impacts on the hydrologic regime of a Canadian river: comparing uncertainties arising from climate natural variability and lumped hydrological model structures

Climate change impacts on the hydrologic regime of a Canadian river: comparing uncertainties arising from climate natural variability and lumped hydrological model structures

Intercomparison of different uncertainty sources in hydrological climate change projections for an alpine catchment (upper Clutha River, New Zealand)

Analysis of hydrological extremes at different hydro-climatic regimes under present and future conditions

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