Hydrological assessment of proposed reservoirs in the Sonora River Basin, Mexico, under historical and future climate scenarios

作者：Robles Morua A^*; Che D; Mayer A S; Vivoni E R

来源：Hydrological Sciences Journal, 2015, 60(1): 50-66.

DOI：10.1080/02626667.2013.878462

• flood control
• decision support
• northwest Mexico
• climate change
• hydrological modelling
• water infrastructure

A semi-distributed hydrological model and reservoir optimization algorithm are used to evaluate the potential impacts of climate change on existing and proposed reservoirs in the Sonora River Basin, Mexico. Inter-annual climatic variability, a bimodal precipitation regime and climate change uncertainties present challenges to water resource management in the region. Hydrological assessments are conducted for three meteorological products during a historical period and a future climate change scenario. Historical (1990-2000) and future (2031-2040) projections were derived from a mesoscale model forced with boundary conditions from a general circulation model under a high emissions scenario. The results reveal significantly higher precipitation, reservoir inflows, elevations and releases in the future relative to historical simulations. Furthermore, hydrological seasonality might be altered with a shift toward earlier water supply during the North American monsoon. The proposed infrastructure would have a limited ability to ameliorate future conditions, with more benefits in a tributary with lower flood hazard. These projections of the impacts of climate change and its interaction with infrastructure should be of interest to water resources managers in arid and semi-arid regions.
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Editor D. Koutsoyiannis

• 出版日期2015-1