Abstract
Nepal is located on the southern slope of the Central Himalayas and has experienced frequent droughts in the past. In this study, we used an ensemble of 13 biased corrected models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) to assess the future drought conditions over Nepal under three shared socioeconomic pathways (SSP126, SSP245, and SSP585) using the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) at annual timescale. The monthly correlation between observed and CMIP6-simulated historical SPEI is 0.23 (p < 0.01), which indicates the CMIP6 model ensemble can simulate the drought characteristics over Nepal. In the future period (2020–2100), the duration and severity of droughts are projected to increase with higher emission scenarios, especially for SSP585. Our results indicate enhanced drought intensity under SSP126, whereas, under SSP245, the drought frequency will be slightly higher. The drought frequency is projected to increase in the early future (2020–2060), decreasing in the late future (2061–2100) under all SSP scenarios. The results further indicate more prolonged and severe droughts in the early future under SSP585 as compared to SSP126 and SSP245. The findings of the present study can help drought mitigation as well as long-term adaptation strategies over Nepal.
Highlights
Climate change and climate extremes have impacted agriculture production, water resources, environment, and socioeconomic system globally (De Silva and Kawasaki 2018; Hamal et al 2020b; Van Dijk et al 2013; Zhou et al 2015)
The seasonal cycle of the observed and Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6)-simulated mean precipitation and temperature over Nepal during the historical period is shown in Fig. 1b, c
The results indicated that the CMIP6 datasets can capture the monthly mean precipitation and temperature climatology over Nepal
Summary
Climate change and climate extremes have impacted agriculture production, water resources, environment, and socioeconomic system globally (De Silva and Kawasaki 2018; Hamal et al 2020b; Van Dijk et al 2013; Zhou et al 2015). Meteorological disasters (i.e., drought and floods) are frequent and severe due to the increased global warming and ongoing climate change (Bazaz et al 2018; Sheffield et al 2012). We adopted the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) (Vicente-Serrano et al 2010), developed in the context of global warming, for drought projection over Nepal Considering both precipitation and temperature for drought calculation and its variability at multiple timescales, the SPEI has been widely accepted for drought monitoring and prediction (Almazroui et al 2020; Hamal et al 2020b; Vicente-Serrano et al 2010)
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