Abstract
Abstract. In the mountain regions of the Hindu Kush, Karakoram and Himalaya (HKH) the "third polar ice cap" of our planet, glaciers play the role of "water towers" by providing significant amount of melt water, especially in the dry season, essential for agriculture, drinking purposes, and hydropower production. Recently, most glaciers in the HKH have been retreating and losing mass, mainly due to significant regional warming, thus calling for assessment of future water resources availability for populations down slope. However, hydrology of these high altitude catchments is poorly studied and little understood. Most such catchments are poorly gauged, thus posing major issues in flow prediction therein, and representing in fact typical grounds of application of PUB concepts, where simple and portable hydrological modeling based upon scarce data amount is necessary for water budget estimation, and prediction under climate change conditions. In this preliminarily study, future (2060) hydrological flows in a particular watershed (Shigar river at Shigar, ca. 7000 km2), nested within the upper Indus basin and fed by seasonal melt from major glaciers, are investigated. The study is carried out under the umbrella of the SHARE-Paprika project, aiming at evaluating the impact of climate change upon hydrology of the upper Indus river. We set up a minimal hydrological model, tuned against a short series of observed ground climatic data from a number of stations in the area, in situ measured ice ablation data, and remotely sensed snow cover data. The future, locally adjusted, precipitation and temperature fields for the reference decade 2050–2059 from CCSM3 model, available within the IPCC's panel, are then fed to the hydrological model. We adopt four different glaciers' cover scenarios, to test sensitivity to decreased glacierized areas. The projected flow duration curves, and some selected flow descriptors are evaluated. The uncertainty of the results is then addressed, and use of the model for nearby catchments discussed. The proposed approach is valuable as a tool to investigate the hydrology of poorly gauged high altitude areas, and to project forward their hydrological behavior pending climate change.
Highlights
The mountain range of the Hindu Kush, Karakoram and Himalaya (HKH) contains a large amount of glacier ice, and it is the third pole of our planet (Smiraglia et al, 2007; Kehrwald et al, 2008), delivering water for agriculture, drinking purposes and power production
There are estimates indicating that more than 50 % of the water flowing in the Indus river, Pakistan, which originates from the Karakoram, is due to snow and glacier melt (Immerzeel et al, 2010)
GCMs carry considerable information concerning large scale forcing to local climate, so their use is appropriate for projections of climate change impact
Summary
The mountain range of the Hindu Kush, Karakoram and Himalaya (HKH) contains a large amount of glacier ice, and it is the third pole of our planet (Smiraglia et al, 2007; Kehrwald et al, 2008), delivering water for agriculture, drinking purposes and power production. There are estimates indicating that more than 50 % of the water flowing in the Indus river, Pakistan, which originates from the Karakoram, is due to snow and glacier melt (Immerzeel et al, 2010). The hydrological regimes of HKH rivers and potential impact of climate change therein have been hitherto assessed in a number of contribution in the available scientific literature (Aizen et al, 2002; Hannah et al, 2005; Kaser et al, 2010). Any perturbation in agriculture will considerably affect the food systems of the region and increase the vulnerability of the poor population (Aggarwal et al, 2004; Kahlown et al, 2007)
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