Sensitivity of surface runoffto drought and climate change: Application for shared river basins

Abstract

This study quantifies the sensitivity of surface runoffto drought and climate change in the Diyala watershed shared between Iraq and Iran. This was achieved through a combined use of a wide range of changes in the amount of precipitation (a decline between 0% and -40%) and in the potential evapotranspiration rate (an increase between 0% and +30%). The Medbasin-monthly rainfall-runoffmodel (Medbasin-M) was used for runoffsimulation. The model was calibrated for twelve hydrologic years (1962-1973), and the simulation results were validated with the observed annual runofffor nine water years (1974-1982). For the calibration period, the correlation coefficient (r), the root mean squared error (RMSE), the mean absolute error (MAE) and the index of agreement (IoA) were 0.893, 2.117, 1.733 and 0.852, respectively. The corresponding values for validation were 0.762, 1.250, 1.093 and 0.863, in this order. The Reconnaissance Drought Index (RDI) and the Streamflow Drought Index (SDI) were analysed using DrinC software. Three nomographs were introduced to quantify the projected reductions in the annual runoffand the anticipated RDI and SDI values, respectively. The proposed methodology offers a simple, powerful and generic approach for predicting the rate of change (%) in annual runoffunder climate change scenarios.