Assessment of climate change impact on probable maximum floods in a tropical catchment

Abstract

The increases in extreme rainfall could increase the probable maximum flood (PMF) and pose a severe threat to the critical hydraulic infrastructure such as dams and flood protection structures. This study is conducted to assess the impact of climate change on PMF in a tropical catchment. Climate and inflow data of the Tenmengor reservoir, located in the state of Perak in Malaysia, have been used to calibrate and validate the hydrological model. The projected rainfall from regional climate model is used to generate probable maximum precipitation (PMP) for future periods. A hydrological model was used to simulate PMF from PMP estimated for the historical and two future periods, early (2031 − 2045) and late (2060 − 2075). The results revealed good performance of the hydrological model with Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency, 0.74, and the relative standard error, 0.51, during validation. The estimated rainfall depths were 89.5 mm, 106.3 mm, and 143.3 mm, respectively, for 5, 10, and 50 years of the return period. The study indicated an increase in PMP by 162% to 507% and 259% to 487% during early and late periods for different return periods ranging from 5 to 1000 years. This would cause an increase in PMF by 48.9% and 122.6% during early and late periods. A large increase in PMF indicates the possibility of devastating floods in the future in his tropical catchment due to climate change.