Title: | Modeling potential impacts of climate change on streamflow using projections of the 5th assessment report for the Bernam River Basin, Malaysia |
Authors: | Dlamini, N.S., M.R. Kamal, M.A.B.M. Soom, M.S.F. bin Mohd, A.F.B. Abdullah and L.S. Hin |
Year: | 2017 |
Journal: | Water |
Volume (Issue): | 9(4) |
Pages: | |
Article ID: | 226 |
DOI: | 10.3390/w9030226 |
URL (non-DOI journals): | |
Model: | SWAT |
Broad Application Category: | hydrologic only |
Primary Application Category: | climate change assessment |
Secondary Application Category: | hydrologic assessment |
Watershed Description: | 1,097 km^2 Bernam River, located in the west central part of Peninsula Malaysia |
Calibration Summary: | |
Validation Summary: | |
General Comments: | |
Abstract: | Potential impacts of climate change on the streamflow of the Bernam River Basin in Malaysia
are assessed using ten Global Climate Models (GCMs) under three Representative Concentration
Pathways (RCP4.5, RCP6.0 and RCP8.5). A graphical user interface was developed that integrates all
of the common procedures of assessing climate change impacts, to generate high resolution climate
variables (e.g., rainfall, temperature, etc.) at the local scale from large-scale climate models. These
are linked in one executable module to generate future climate sequences that can be used as inputs
to various models, including hydrological and crop models. The generated outputs were used as
inputs to the SWAT hydrological model to simulate the hydrological processes. The evaluation
results indicated that the model performed well for the watershed with a monthly R2, Nash–Sutcliffe
Efficiency (NSE) and Percent Bias (PBIAS) values of 0.67, 0.62 and -9.4 and 0.62, 0.61 and -4.2 for
the calibration and validation periods, respectively. The multi-model projections show an increase in
future temperature (tmax and tmin) in all respective scenarios, up to an average of 2.5 C for under the
worst-case scenario (RC8.5). Rainfall is also predicted to change with clear variations between the dry
and wet season. Streamflow projections also followed rainfall pattern to a great extent with a distinct
change between the dry and wet season possibly due to the increase in evapotranspiration in the
watershed. In principle, the interface can be customized for the application to other watersheds by
incorporating GCMs’ baseline data and their corresponding future data for those particular stations
in the new watershed. Methodological limitations of the study are also discussed. |
Language: | English |
Keywords: | climate change; SWAT hydrological model; streamflow; Bernam River Basin; Malaysia |