Author(s): M. T. Vu; V. S. Raghavan; S. Y. Liong
Linked Author(s):
Keywords: Regional Climate Model; WRF; SWAT; Climate Change; Trans-boundary; Vietnam
Abstract: There have been conflicts not only in sharing of water resources but also data across trans-boundary regions between two or more countries. Subsequently, it leads to challenges when it comes to water management. In the context of climate change, there is a need to know possible future changes to water resources that requires data for hydrological modelling and water resources management, as in the case of river basins. In this paper, the focus is on Da river which flows from China (upstream) to Vietnam (downstream) with coverage of about 48%and 50%, respectively, of the basin area. In this study, the rainfall data from China is not available, thus we utilized the application the regional climate model output as proxy data for this upstream region to study changes over downstream Da river. The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model is driven by the European Reanalysis data (ERA40) for the baseline period of 1961-1987 for a domain covering the trans-boundary regions at a resolution of 25km. Precipitation outputs from this model are used as input to a hydrology model, SWAT, to calibrate and validate the model at data available gauging station sites. The results of this study strongly suggest that the RCM data proxies can definitely serve as a good alternative to assess water resources over trans-boundary regions. The projected RCM data also helps provide the trans-boundary regions with the projected future climate.
Year: 2014