Impacts of Climate Change on the Hydro-Climatology and Performances of Bin El Ouidane Reservoir: Morocco, Africa

Abstract

AbstractIn arid and humid contexts, dams’ reservoirs play a crucial role in water regulation and flood control. Under the projected climate change (CC) effects, even a preoptimized management approach (MA) of a reservoir needs to be assessed in this projected climate. This chapter aims to assess the impacts of CC on the Hydroclimatic (HC) variables of the basin upstream the reservoir of Bin El Ouidane (Morocco), and the effects on the performances of its preoptimized MA. The applied Top-Down assessment procedure included CORDEX climate projections, hydrological, siltation, evaporation, and management models. Concerning the HC variables, the results obtained concord with those reported in the literature in terms of trend, but not always in terms of intensity of change. On the other hand, the projections expected a decrease in the performances of the reservoir, except for criterion allocations’ standard deviation, calibrated during the optimization. Also, interesting conclusions have been found like: the change in precipitation dominant form, the accentuation of the pluvial hydrological regime, the advanced snow melting due to the temperature increase. This chapter presents a typical case study on how to use climate projections for reservoir MA adaptation, without being highly and negatively influenced by the climate model uncertainties.