Assessment of the climate change impacts on the water resources of the Luni region, India

Abstract

Climate change is expected to have a strong impact on water resources at the local, regional and global scales. In this study, the impact of climate change on the hydro-climatology of the Luni region, India, is investigated by comparing statistics of current and projected future fluxes resulting from three representative concentration pathways (RCP2.6, RCP4.5, and RCP8.5). The use of different scenarios allows for the estimation of uncertainty of future impacts. The projections are based on the CORDEX-South Asia framework and are bias-corrected using the DBS method before being entered into the HYPE (HYdrological Predictions for the Environment) hydrological model to generate predictions of runoff, evapotranspiration, soil moisture deficit, and applied irrigation water to soil. Overall, the high uncertainty in the climate projections is propagated in the impact model, and as a result the spatiotemporal distribution of change is subject to the climate change scenario. In general, for all scenarios, results show a -20 to +20% change in the long-term average precipitation and evapotranspiration, whereas more pronounced impacts are expected for runoff (-40 to +40% change). Climate change can also affect other hydro-climatic components, however, at a lower impact. Finally, the flow dynamics in the Luni River are substantially affected in terms of shape and magnitude.