Hydrological assessment of proposed reservoirs in the Sonora River Basin,Mexico, under historical and future climate scenarios |
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Authors: | A Robles-Morua D Che AS Mayer |
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Institution: | 1. Departamento de Ciencias del Agua y del Medio Ambiente, Instituto Tecnológico de Sonora, Ciudad Obregón, México;2. School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA;3. School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA;4. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Michigan Technological University, Houghton, Michigan, USA |
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Abstract: | AbstractA semi-distributed hydrological model and reservoir optimization algorithm are used to evaluate the potential impacts of climate change on existing and proposed reservoirs in the Sonora River Basin, Mexico. Inter-annual climatic variability, a bimodal precipitation regime and climate change uncertainties present challenges to water resource management in the region. Hydrological assessments are conducted for three meteorological products during a historical period and a future climate change scenario. Historical (1990–2000) and future (2031–2040) projections were derived from a mesoscale model forced with boundary conditions from a general circulation model under a high emissions scenario. The results reveal significantly higher precipitation, reservoir inflows, elevations and releases in the future relative to historical simulations. Furthermore, hydrological seasonality might be altered with a shift toward earlier water supply during the North American monsoon. The proposed infrastructure would have a limited ability to ameliorate future conditions, with more benefits in a tributary with lower flood hazard. These projections of the impacts of climate change and its interaction with infrastructure should be of interest to water resources managers in arid and semi-arid regions. Editor D. Koutsoyiannis |
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Keywords: | hydrological modelling climate change water infrastructure decision support flood control northwest Mexico |
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