The hydraulic transfers “Setif-Hodna” to cope with impact of climate change on Setif high plains region

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to show the impact of greenhouse gas emission scenarios on annual temperature and precipitation changes during three periods of the twenty-first century in Setif region by using two selected GCMs; and second, to show the importance of “Setif-Hodna” hydraulic transfers’ project, like a method to adapt to the water scarcity in the future.Design/methodology/approachThis study investigates likely changes in annual temperature and precipitation over Setif high plains region (North-East of Algeria) under four Special Report on Emission Scenarios scenarios: A1B, B1, A2 and B2, between three time slices: 2030, 2060 and 2090. MAGICC-SCENGEN 5.3v.2 was used as a tool for downscaling the two selected general circulation models.FindingsThe projections of GFDLCM20 and GFDLCM21 indicate that annual temperature will increase under the four scenarios and across the three time slices. GFDLCM20 predictions indicate a general decrease in mean annual precipitation across the four scenarios, with average of −3.02, −2.47 and −1.07 percent in 2030, 2060 and 2090, respectively. GFDLCM21 show a high decrease, with values of −18.72, −27.2 and −31.9 percent across the three periods, respectively.Originality/valueThis work is one of the first to study the impact of greenhouse gas emission scenarios on annual temperature and precipitation changes over the region, and present the hydraulic transfers project “Setif-Hodna” like an adaptive strategy to limit the effect of water scarcity in this region.