Impact of climate change on water resources status: A case study for Crete Island, Greece

Abstract

8An assessment of the impact of global climate change on the water resources status of the 9 island of Crete, for a range of 24 different scenarios of projected hydro-climatological regime 10 is presented. Three -state of the art‖ Global Climate Models (GCMs) and an ensemble of 11Regional Climate Models (RCMs) under emission scenarios B1, A2 and A1B provide future 12 precipitation (P) and temperature (T) estimates that are bias adjusted against observations. 13The ensemble of RCMs for the A1B scenario project a higher P reduction compared to GCMs 14 projections under A2 and B1 scenarios. Among GCMs model results, the ECHAM model 15 projects a higher P reduction compared to IPSL and CNCM. Water availability for the whole 16 island at basin scale until 2100 is estimated using the SAC-SMA rainfall-runoff model And a 17 set of demand and infrastructure scenarios are adopted to simulate potential water use. While 18 predicted reduction of water availability under the B1 emission scenario can be handled with 19 water demand stabilized at present values and full implementation of planned infrastructure, 20 other scenarios require additional measures and a robust signal of water insufficiency is 21 projected. Despite inherent uncertainties, the quantitative impact of the projected changes on 22 water availability indicates that climate change plays an important role to water use and 23 management in controlling future water status in a Mediterranean island like Crete. The 24 2 results of the study reinforce the necessity to improve and update local water management 25 planning and adaptation strategies in order to attain future water security. 26 27

A framework for assessing hydrological regime sensitivity to climate change in a convective rainfall environment: a case study of two medium-sized eastern Mediterranean catchments, Israel

“…The SAC-SMA robustness was demonstrated by the results of the Distributed Modeling Intercomparison Project Smith et al, 2004) and this model is used in many operational setups for various water resources management and flood warning practices. In recent years the SAC-SMA was also used in various climate change impact studies (e.g., Georgakakos et al, 2012a, b;Carpenter, 2011;Kerkhoven and Gan, 2011;Koutroulis et al, 2013;Kwon et al, 2011;Najafi et al, 2011).…”

A New Way for Incorporating GCM Information into Water Shortage Projections

“…However, the suitability of this future demand scenario should be re-studied and updated to be more realistic as a future study. For instance, Koutroulis et al [34] developed a simple future water demand storyline based on future irrigation extension plans, population trends, etc. Above all, however, it needs to be reiterated that the main purpose of this study is to alert decision makers of the risk of the direct use of GCM-driven data without thorough analysis.…”

Simulation and Prediction of Climate Variability and Assessment of the Response of Water Resources in a Typical Watershed in China

“…Thus, it has been widely used around the world for hydrological processes and soil movement, the assessment of water resources and water quality, and in the movement and transformation of nutrients (such as nitrogen, phosphorus) and pesticides [40,41]. In recent years, the model has been increasingly applied in evaluating climate impacts on water resources at the basin scale, for small to large catchments [42][43][44][45][46][47].…”