Abstract
Abstract. In last decades, the impact of climate change started to appear in the semi-arid regions of the Mediterranean Basin. The severity and frequency of drought events in Northwestern Algeria have affected water resources availability and agriculture. This study aims to evaluate the temporal evolution of drought events characteristics, such as drought duration, frequency and severity, of the Beni Bahdel Dam catchment, Northwestern Algeria. Drought characteristics have been derived from the Standardized precipitation index (SPI) computed for the period from 1941 to 2100 using precipitation data from observations and simulations of the regional climate model RCA4 (Rossby Centre Atmosphere model, version 4). The RCA4 model was forced by the global circulation model MPI-ESM-LR under two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) scenarios. The ability of the model simulations was firstly assessed to reproduce the drought characteristics from observed data (1951–2005). Then, future changes in drought characteristics over the twenty-first century were investigated under the two scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5). Results show an amplification of drought frequencies and durations in the future under the RCP8.5 scenario.
Highlights
In last decades, the impact of climate change started to appear in the Mediterranean basin
The temporal evolution of drought events using the SPI12 was analyzed for the period from 1941 to 2100 in the Beni Bahdel Dam catchement situated in the Northwest of Algeria
The SPI12 was calculated from the oberved rainfall (1941–2005) and from the RCA4-MPI-ESM-LR climate model (1951–2100)
Summary
The impact of climate change started to appear in the Mediterranean basin. The Beni Bahdel Dam, which is principally designed for the irrigation of the western plains and drinking supply, has attained its minimum level in several years failing to satisfy the water demand. This situation likely will intensify in the future, where there is consensus in projections by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) about future decreases in rainfall (Christensen et al, 2007). The climate in Northwestern Algeria was humid in 1951, semi-arid since 1973 and it is projected to be arid in 2100. Bouabdelli et al (2020) found that hydrological drought risk determined with
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