Climate change impact on water resources availability: case study of the Llobregat River basin (Spain)

Climate change may have significant consequences for water resources availability and management at the basin scale. This is particularly true for areas already suffering from water stress, such as the Mediterranean area. This work focused on studying these impacts in the Llobregat basin supplying t...

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Published inHydrological sciences journal Vol. 61; no. 14; pp. 2496 - 2508
Main Authors Versini, P.-A., Pouget, L., McEnnis, S., Custodio, E., Escaler, I.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Abingdon Taylor & Francis 25.10.2016
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
Availability
Climate change
Drought
Earth Sciences
Environment and Society
Environmental Engineering
Environmental impact
Environmental Sciences
Freshwater
Hydrologic models
hydrological model
Hydrology
Meteorology
Resource availability
River basins
Sciences of the Universe
uncertainty
Uncertainty analysis
Water availability
water management
Water resources
Water stress
Spain
Spain, Cataluna, Llobregat R
MED, Spain, Cataluna, Barcelona
MED
hydrological model
uncertainty
water management
climate change
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Summary:Climate change may have significant consequences for water resources availability and management at the basin scale. This is particularly true for areas already suffering from water stress, such as the Mediterranean area. This work focused on studying these impacts in the Llobregat basin supplying the Barcelona region. Several climate projections, adapted to the spatiotemporal resolution of the study, were combined with a daily hydrological model to estimate future water availability. Depending on the scenario and the time period, different assessment indicators such as reliability and resilience showed a future decrease in water resources (up to 40%), with drought periods becoming more frequent. An additional uncertainty analysis showed the high variability of the results (annual water availability ranging from 147 hm 3 /year to 274 hm 3 /year), thus making accurate projections difficult. Finally, the study illustrates how climate change could be taken into account to provide adaptive measures for the future. Editor M.C. Acreman; Associate editor J. Thompson
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
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ISSN:0262-6667
2150-3435
DOI:10.1080/02626667.2016.1154556