Abstract
Understanding the spatiotemporal distribution of past and future climate change impact is essential for effective water resource management. This study aims to reveal the impact of temperature and precipitation change on hydrological streamflow of Ouergha watershed and on the inflow regime of Al Wahda dam. Initially, historical climate trend was assessed using Mann Kendall tests and Sen’s slope. Then, regional Climate Models (Cordex-Africa) were used to project future precipitation and temperature data under two emission scenarios (RCP4.5 as realistic and RCP8.5 as pessimistic). After correcting the biases in climatic variables using three different methods, the calibrated and validated SWAT model was forced to project the hydrological simulations under both scenarios. The study shows a clear decreasing in precipitation and augmentation in annual mean temperature over the past decades. In addition, projected climate variables expected severe change in future precipitation (decreasing) and mean temperature (Increasing). The impact of this climatic alteration is expected to extremely affect rivers discharge and reservoir inflows in both magnitude and timing.
Highlights
Morocco is classified as one of the arid and semi-arid areas, and it is considered to be one of the water-scarce regions [1, 2]
This study investigated the possible changes in rainfall patterns over Ouergha watershed, based on a detailed statistical analysis of historical daily rainfall records available at 8 stations, and daily temperature of 10 stations from CFSR
Once the projection of climate variable was done, the use of the projected variables is used to force Soil and Water Assessment Tools (SWAT) model in order to assess the impact of climate change on Ouergha rivers discharge and on the inflow to Al Wahda dam
Summary
Morocco is classified as one of the arid and semi-arid areas, and it is considered to be one of the water-scarce regions [1, 2]. Evidence from historical climatic data suggested some significant trends (upward) in extreme and mean temperature [3]. These climatic changes will extremely affect water availability, including surface water, groundwater and water yield, which subsequently will impact hydrologic flows into streams, lakes and dams [4]. The dam irrigates about 100,000 ha in the Gharb and produces nearly an average of 400 million Kwh/year, representing 16% of total hydropower production in Morocco. It allows the transfer of approximately 600,106 m3 of water to regions further south [5]
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