Dynamics of potential precipitation under climate change scenarios at Cameron highlands, Malaysia

Nuraddeen Mukhtar Nasidi,Aimrun Wayayok,Muhamad Saufi Mohd Kassim,Ahmad Fikri Abdullah

doi:10.1007/s42452-021-04332-x

Nuraddeen Mukhtar Nasidi, Aimrun Wayayok + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s42452-021-04332-x

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Abstract

Precipitation is sensitive to increasing greenhouse gas emission which has a significant impact on environmental sustainability. Rapid change of climate variables is often result into large variation in rainfall characteristics which trigger other forms of hazards such as floods, erosion, and landslides. This study employed multi-model ensembled general circulation models (GCMs) approach to project precipitation into 2050s and 2080s periods under four RCPs emission scenarios. Spatial analysis was performed in ArcGIS10.5 environment using Inverse Distance Weighted (IDW) interpolation and Arc-Hydro extension. The model validation indicated by coefficient of determination, Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency, percent bias, root mean square error, standard error, and mean absolute error are 0.73, 0.27, 20.95, 1.25, 0.37 and 0.15, respectively. The results revealed that the Cameron Highlands will experience higher mean daily precipitations between 5.4 mm in 2050s and 9.6 mm in 2080s under RCP8.5 scenario, respectively. Analysis of precipitation concentration index (PCI) revealed that 75% of the watershed has PCI greater than 20 units which indicates substantial variability of the precipitation. Similarly, there is varied spatial distribution patterns of projected precipitation over the study watershed with the largest annual values ranged between 2900 and 3000 mm, covering 71% of the total area in 2080s under RCP8.5 scenario. Owing to this variability in rainfall magnitudes, appropriate measures for environmental protection are essential and to be strategized to address more vulnerable areas.

Highlights

Climate change caused by the greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions affect both the global hydrological cycle and regional hydrology worldwide, which will continue in future [1,2,3]
The Global Circulation Models (GCMs) datasets are obtainable from the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) [8]
The indices used in this study to determine the variability level of potential precipitation have shown considerable rise relative to baseline condition indicated high tendencies to exacerbate soil erosion processes

Summary

Introduction

Climate change caused by the greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions affect both the global hydrological cycle and regional hydrology worldwide, which will continue in future [1,2,3]. Variability in precipitation is expected in both magnitude and frequency, from one region to another This variation will impact the activities of water resources including reservoir storage, flood control, water management, irrigation, energy production, transportation, and recreational activities. In: Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis, the range of precipitation trend varies from negative to positive values up to a thirty percent, indicating that projection of precipitation is highly uncertain over a time and space. This uncertainty increases correspondingly with representative concentration pathways (RCPs) forcing. It is very vital to interpret extent at which the increasing trend in rainfall amounts and intensities to enable prioritize environmental control measures

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