Sensitivity of Water Balance to Climate Change and Variability

Kaczmarek, Z. & Krasuski, D. (1991). Sensitivity of Water Balance to Climate Change and Variability. IIASA Working Paper. IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria: WP-91-047

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Abstract

The IIASA Water Resources Project addresses the development and application of methods and procedures needed to identify policy strategies for water resources planning and operation. Due to population growth, industrial and agricultural development, increased pollution and the impact of global climatic change, the reliability of water supply may substantially decrease in various parts of the world, causing serious social and economic problems. There is a need for studies on possible policy actions, aimed at the development of more resilient and more robust water systems, based on a sound understanding of geophysical processes which regulate the hydrological cycle in a changing environment.

This paper concerns methodological tools for the sensitivity analysis of the water balance components to changing climatic forcings. It presents a new meso-scale hydrological model based on the stochastic storage theory, and its application to the sensitivity analysis and to water balance impact studies. The model allows to calculate runoff characteristics, evaporation and catchment storage on the basis of standard climatological data, and eventually on the basis of alternative climate scenarios. It was tested for a number of river catchments in Europe and Africa.

The possible effects of the expected changes in air temperature and precipitation will give rise to various problems in many fields of water resource management. For this reason, the paper may be of interest not only to hydrologists, but also to decision makers in water industry.

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