Integrated Projection for Runoff Changes in Large Russian River Basins in the Xxi Century

Abstract

ABSTRACT. The paper discusses an approach to a long-term forecast of river runoff changes for Russian large river basins in the first third of the XXI century caused by climate warming and social-economic changes. The approach considers runoff changes under a range of possible climate warming effects. This range is chosen by generalizing the calculation results obtained by using an ensemble of global climate models within CMIP 3 and CMIP 5 experiments for two contrasting scenarios (A2/RCP 8.5 and B1/RCP 2.6) of globally averaged air temperature rises. The approach also utilizes a method for alternative scenario for water consumption related to socio-economic changes. The obtained scenario estimates show that expected changes in the Volga and Don annual river runoff and its intra-annual distribution in the first third of this century can be relatively small, while changes in water use characteristics may be extremely negative in some scenarios, especially in the Don River basin.

Overview: Recent advances in the understanding of the northern Eurasian environments and of the urban air quality in China – a Pan-Eurasian Experiment (PEEX) programme perspective

“…This freshwater inflow of approximately 2920 km 3 yr −1 (Shiklomanov et al, 2008) is associated with large sediment and heat transports, which together affect the hydrography, marine climate and ecosystems across the Siberian shelf seas (Magritsky et al, 2018). A major part of seasonal and inter-annual varia-tions in the river runoff is anthropogenic due to regulation in large reservoirs (Georgiadi et al, 2016). In addition, Magritsky et al (2018) detected an increased runoff trend of 5 %-10 %, compared to a reference period of 1936 to 1975, in most of the major Russian rivers discharging into the Arctic Ocean.…”

Overview: Recent advances on the understanding of the Northern Eurasian environments and of the urban air quality in China - Pan Eurasian Experiment (PEEX) program perspective

“…This freshwater inflow of approximately 2920 km 3 per year (Shiklomanov, 2008) is associated with large sediment and heat transports, which together affect the hydrography, marine climate, and ecosystems across the Siberian shelf seas (Magritsky et al, 2018). A major part of seasonal and interannual variations in river runoff is anthropogenic, due to regulation in large reservoirs (Georgiadi et al, 2016). In addition, Magritsky et al (2018) detected an increased runoff trend of 5-10 %, compared to a reference period of 1936 to 1975, in most of the major Russian rivers discharging into the Arctic Ocean.…”

Water Flow Changes In The Don River (European Russia) During 1891–2019

“…Studies relating to long-term changes in river water flow and other components of environmental flow which are regarded to be particularly susceptible to ongoing climate change, are given a great deal of attention due to current global warming began in the 1970s and 1980s (Hinzmann et al 2005;Water Resources … 2008;Shiklomanov et al 2013;Georgiadi et al 2014;Magritsky 2015;Georgiadi et al 2018;Shiklomanov et al 2020;Scientific and applied reference … 2021;Georgiadi and Groisman 2022;Frolova et al 2022;Zhuravlev et al 2022). A large number of scientific publications is devoted to the evaluation of changes that happened in various hydrological characteristics during the global warming period compared to the relatively cooler baseline period (Shiklomanov and Georgievskii 2007;Water Resources … 2008;Georgiadi et al 2019).…”

“…As a rule, such estimates are made based on a comparison of the studied flow characteristic values for both periods of global warming and preceding baseline period. In addition, the problem of long-term periods (phases according to the terminology adopted in the former USSR (Andreyanov 1959;Kuzin 1979) and Russia (Georgiadi et al 2014) of increased/decreased values of the river water flow characteristics and other georunoff (a term proposed by (Muraveysky 1960)) components (sediment, chemical, biological and heat fluxes from a catchment area) during XIX-XXI centuries is of considerable interest. The successive change of contrasting long-term phases is an important feature of the long-term dynamics of hydrological characteristics due to climate change.…”