Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-6d856f89d9-sp8b6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-16T07:43:14.624Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

10 - The impacts of climate change on rainfall-runoff in the upper River Jordan: methodology and first projections

from Part III - Hydrological studies of the Jordan Valley

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 April 2011

By
Andrew Wade ,
Emily Black ,
Nicola Flynn  and
Paul Whitehead
Edited by
Steven Mithen  and
Emily Black
Andrew Wade
Affiliation:
University of Reading
Emily Black
Affiliation:
University of Reading
Nicola Flynn
Affiliation:
University of Reading
Paul Whitehead
Affiliation:
University of Reading
Steven Mithen
Affiliation:
University of Reading
Emily Black
Affiliation:
University of Reading
Get access

Summary

ABSTRACT

This chapter is concerned with the development and application of a modelling framework to investigate the sensitivity of the flows in the upper River Jordan to changes in daily and seasonal rainfall patterns, and the likely changes in the daily runoff in response to anthropogenic climate change. To this end, idealised climate scenarios as well as projections of future near-surface air temperature and precipitation from the HadRM3 climate model are used with a modelling framework incorporating the Pitman and INCA rainfall-runoff models to determine flow sensitivity to rainfall and the flow response to a scenario of projected climate change. The Pitman model was used to estimate the hydrologically effective rainfall (HER); the INCA model was used for simplified flood-routing. The INCA model was calibrated for the period 1989 to 1993, commensurate with the observed daily mean flows, and the goodness of fit coefficient R2 was 0.7, indicating a good fit to the observed dynamics, although the simulated flows were an overestimate of those observed owing to unquantifiable river abstractions. On a seasonal timescale, comparison between sensitivity scenarios with long and short rainy seasons showed that rainfall in the winter months had the greatest impact on flow. In response to projected changes in the climate for 2071–2100, the modelled flood flows in the scenario period were reduced by approximately 31% for the largest simulated flood and 25% for the 10th percentile flow in comparison to those in the control period from 1961 to 1990. […]

Type
Chapter
Information
Water, Life and Civilisation
Climate, Environment and Society in the Jordan Valley
 , pp. 131 - 146
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alpert, P., Krichak, S., Shafir, H., Haim, D. and Osentinsky, I. (2008) Climatic trends to extremes employing regional modeling and statistical interpretation over the E. Mediterranean. Global and Planetary Change 63: 163–170.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alpert, P., Osetinsky, I., Ziv, B. and Shafir, H. (2004) Semi-objective classification for daily synoptic systems: application to the eastern Mediterranean climate change. International Journal of Climatology 24: 1001–1011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arnell, N. W. (2003) Effects of IPCC SRES emissions scenarios on river runoff: a global perspective. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 7: 619–641.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beven, K. and Freer, J. (2001) Equifinality, data assimilation and uncertainty estimation in mechanistic modelling of complex environmental systems using the GLUE methodology. Journal of Hydrology 249: 11–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dibike, Y. B. and Coulibaly, P. (2005) Hydrologic impact of climate change in the Saguenay watershed: comparison of downscaling methods and hydrologic models. Journal of Hydrology 307: 145–163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
,Global Land Cover 2000 database (2003) The Global Land Cover Map for the year 2000. GLC2000 database, European Commission Joint Research Centre. http://www-gem.jrc.it/glc2000.
Gustard, A., Bullock, A. and Dixon, J. M. (1992) Low flow estimation in the United Kingdom 1992. Institute of Hydrology Report 108. Wallingford: Institute of Hydrology.Google Scholar
Hoff, H., Küchmeister, H. and Tielbörger, K. (2006) The GLOWA Jordan River project – Integrated Research for Sustainable Water Management. International Water Association Water Environment Management Series 10: 73–80.Google Scholar
,IPCC Core Writing Team, Pachauri, R. K. and Reisinger, A. (2007) Summary for Policymakers. In Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Geneva: IPCC.Google Scholar
Kimball, B. A. and Bernacchi, C. J. (2006) Evapotranspiration, canopy temperature and plant water relations. Ecological Studies 187: 311–324.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klein Goldewijk, K. K. (2001) Estimating global land use change over the past 300 years: the HYDE database. Global Biogeochemical Cycles 15: 417–434.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kunstmann, H., Suppan, P., Heckl, A. and Rimmer, A. (2005) Combined high resolution climate and distributed hydrological simulations for the eastern Mediterranean/Near East and the upper Jordan catchment. In Conference on International Agricultural Research for Development (Tropentag), Stuttgart-Hohenheim. www.tropentag.de/2005/abstracts/full/461.pdf.Google Scholar
Lange, J., Liebundgut, C. and Schick, A. P. (2000) The importance of single events in arid zone rainfall-runoff modelling. Physics and Chemistry of the Earth Part B – Hydrology Oceans and Atmosphere 25: 673–677.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quéré, C., Raupach, M. R., Canadell, J. G.et al. (2009) Trends in the sources and sinks of carbon dioxide. Nature Geoscience 2: 831–836.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Menzel, L., Kock, J., Onigkeit, J. and Schaldach, R. (2009) Modelling the effects of land-use and land-cover change on water availability in the Jordan River region. Advances in Geosciences 21: 73–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Messager, C., Gallee, H., Brasseur, O.et al. (2006) Influence of observed and RCM-simulated precipitation on the water discharge over the Sirba basin, Burkina Faso/Niger. Climate Dynamics 27: 199–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mileham, L., Taylor, R., Thompson, J., Todd, M. and Tindimugaya, C. (2008) Impact of rainfall distribution on the parameterisation of a soil-moisture balance model of groundwater recharge in equatorial Africa. Journal of Hydrology 359: 46–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mileham, L., Taylor, R. G., Todd, M., Tindimugaya, C. and Thompson, J. (2009) The impact of climate change on groundwater recharge and runoff in a humid, equatorial catchment: sensitivity of projections to rainfall intensity. Hydrological Sciences Journal – Journal des Sciences Hydrologiques 54: 727–738.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nakicenovic, N., Alcamo, J., Davis, G.et al., eds. (2001) IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES). Geneva: GRID-Arendal.Google Scholar
Oreskes, N., Shrade-Frechette, K. and Belitz, K. (1994) Verification, validation and confirmation of numerical models in the Earth Sciences. Science 263: 641–646.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Oroud, I. M. (2008) The impacts of climate change on water resources in Jordan. In Climatic Changes and Water Resources in the Middle East and North Africa, ed. Zereini, F. and Hotzl, H.. Berlin and Heidelberg: Springer pp. 109–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pitman, W. V. (1973) A mathematical model for generating river flows from meteorological data in South Africa. Hydrological Research Unit Report 2/73. Johannesburg, South Africa: University of the Witwatersrand.Google Scholar
Puri, S. (2001) Internationally Shared (Transboundary) Aquifer Resource Management: Their Significance and Sustainable Management. IHP-VI Series in Groundwater No. 1. Paris: UNESCO.Google Scholar
Puri, S. and Aureli, A. (2005) Transboundary aquifers: a global program to assess, evaluate, and develop policy. Ground Water 43: 661–668 (doi:10.1111/j.1745-6548.2005.00100.x).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Puri, S., Appelgren, B., Arnold, G.et al. (2001) Internationally Shared (Transboundary) Aquifer Resources Management, their Significance and Sustainable Management: A Framework Document. IHP-VI, International Hydrological Programme, Non Serial Publications in Hydrology Sc-2001/WS/40. Paris: UNESCO.Google Scholar
Rimmer, A. and Salingar, Y. (2006) Modelling precipitation-stream flow processes in Karst basin: the case of the Jordan River sources, Israel. Journal of Hydrology 331: 524–542.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Samuels, R., Rimmer, A. and Alpert, P. (2009) Effect of extreme rainfall events on the water resources of the Jordan River. Journal of Hydrology 375: 513–523.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Suppan, P., Kunstmann, H., Heckl, A. and Rimmer, A. (2008) Impact of climate change on water availability in the Near East. In Climatic Changes and Water Resources in the Middle East and North Africa, ed. Zereini, F. and Hotzl, H.. Berlin and Heidelberg: Springer pp. 45–57.Google Scholar
,United States Department of Agriculture (2006) Jordan – Grain and Feed Report. Annual 2006 Global Agricultural Information Network (GAIN) Report JO6009.Google Scholar
,United States Statistics Division (2010) http://unstats.un.org/unsd/default.htm, retrieved January, 2010.
,US Geological Survey (1998) Overview of Middle East Water Resources: Water Resources of Palestinian, Jordanian, and Israeli Interest. Report compiled by the US Geological Survey for the Executive Action Team, Middle East Water Data Banks Project (EXACT). ISBN 0-607-91785-7.
Wade, A. J., Durand, P., Beaujouan, V.et al. (2002) Towards a generic nitrogen model of European ecosystems: INCA, new model structure and equations. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 6(3): 559–582.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitehead, P. G., Wilson, E. J. and Butterfield, D. (1998) A semi-distributed Integrated Nitrogen model for multiple source assessment in Catchments (INCA): Part 1 – model structure and process equations. Science of the Total Environment 210/211: 547–588.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilby, R. L. and Harris, I. (2006) A framework for assessing uncertainties in climate change impacts: low-flow scenarios for the River Thames, UK. Water Resources Research 42: W02417.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilby, R. L., Troni, J., Biot, Y.et al. (2009) A review of climate risk information for adaptation and development planning. International Journal of Climatology 29: 1193–1215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×