Assessment of the Potential Hydrological Impacts of Climate Change in Quebec—Canada, a Refined Neutral Approach
Author:
Valencia Giraldo Marinela del Carmen1ORCID, Ricard Simon2, Anctil François1ORCID
Affiliation:
1. Department of Civil and Water Engineering, Laval University, Québec, QC G1V 0A6, Canada 2. Institut de Recherche et de Développement en Agroenvironnement (IRDA), Québec, QC G1P 3W8, Canada
Abstract
There is currently much discussion as to whether probabilistic (top–down) or possibilistic (bottom–up) approaches are the most appropriate to estimate potential future climate impacts. In a context of deep uncertainty, such as future climate, bottom-up approaches aimed at assessing the sensitivity and vulnerability of systems to changes in climate variables have been gaining ground. A refined framework is proposed here (in terms of coherence, structure, uncertainty, and results analysis) that adopts the scenario–neutral method of the bottom–up approach, but also draws on some elements of the top–down approach. What better guides the task of assessing the potential hydroclimatological impacts of changing climatic conditions in terms of the sensitivity of the systems, differential analysis of climatic stressors, paths of change, and categorized response of the scenarios: past, changing, compensatory, and critical condition. The results revealed a regional behavior (of hydroclimatology, annual water balances, and snow) and a differential behavior (of low flows). We find, among others, the plausible scenario in which increases in temperature and precipitation would generate the same current mean annual flows, with a reduction of half of the snow, a decrease in low flows (significant, but differentiated between basins), and a generalized increase in dry events.
Funder
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
Subject
Water Science and Technology,Aquatic Science,Geography, Planning and Development,Biochemistry
Reference106 articles.
1. Masson-Delmotte, V., Zhai, P., Pörtner, H.-O., Roberts, D., Skea, J., Shukla, P., Pirani, A., Moufouma-Okia, W., Péan, C., and Pidcock, R. (2018). Global Warming of 1.5°, in press. 2. MassonDelmotte, V., Zhai, P., Pirani, A., Connors, S., Péan, C., Berger, S., Caud, N., Chen, Y., Goldfarb, L., and Gomis, M. (2021). Summary for Policymakers, Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in press. 3. Anthropogenic disturbance of the terrestrial water cycle;Sahagian;Bioscience,2000 4. Climate change impacts—Throwing the dice?;Montanari;Hydrol. Process.,2010 5. A review of simulated climate change impacts on groundwater resources in Eastern Canada;Larocque;Can. Water Resour. J.,2019
|
|