Author(s): A. Abu Elnasr; S. Rombauts; J. Berlamont
Linked Author(s):
Keywords: Climate change; Hydrology; Physically based; MIKE SHE; Climate Scenarios
Abstract: Climate change is of great importance for living conditions and almost all human activities, people live very close to their regional nature condition, and any change in these conditions may have a severe impact on people's activities and live. The extreme weather conditions that happen from time to time such as droughts or flooding have direct impact o human living. Furthermore, it can cost lots of damage to the environment. It is therefore of great importance to try to study and indicate what the future could be like over decades or centuries. This manuscript discusses and examines the future effect on a catchment hydrology based on change of global climate change for a period of 90 years. The distributed physically based MIKE SHE model was used to simulate the hydrology of the Jeker catchment and three different climate scenarios have been selected to perform the analysis. The results show that that the Jeker catchment will probably be drier than it is now, mainly in summer. The extent of the drying is difficult to determine, because the predictions of three climate scenarios differ. The agricultural sector will be hit the hardest by the climate change. The lowering of the precipitation surplus will cause lower productivity because water becomes a limiting factor. If the farmers decide to move on to irrigation, this will lead to a further drying and exhausting of the groundwater reservoirs.
Year: 2003