Projections of flood regime changes over the upper-middle Huaihe River Basin in China based on CMIP6 models

Abstract

Introduction: Climate change alters the hydrological cycle to different extents, in particular the intensification of extreme precipitation and floods, which has garnered more attention as a significant scientific issue in the last few decades. The last Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project 6 (CMIP6) was designed with new shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) to combine socioeconomic development with greenhouse gas emissions to project future climate.Method: In this study, we used 22 global climate models (GCMs) from CMIP6 to investigate future variations in extreme precipitation and temperature under SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5 scenarios over the upper-middle Huaihe River Basin (UMHRB). Then, the modified Xinanjiang model integrating the flood control module was driven to obtain projections of the daily streamflow and to evaluate the future variations in flood regimes.Results: The results show that 1) the characteristics of future extreme precipitation, such as the average intensity and amount of annual precipitation and extreme precipitation, are projected to increase, and the average, maximum, and minimum temperature values also display substantial increasing trends in the future over the UMHRB; 2) warmer climate will lead to a more severe flood magnitude under the SSP5-8.5 scenario in the far future (2071–2100) over the UMHRB. The results of the multi-model ensemble show that the annual maximum flood peaks (15-day flood volumes) of Wangjiaba and Wujiadu stations are projected to increase by 46.4% (43.1%) and 45.4% (51.1%), respectively, in the far future (2071–2100) under the SSP5-8.5 scenario; and 3) variations in the flood frequency tend to resemble variations in flood magnitude, and the return period of the design flood will obviously decrease under future climate scenarios. For instance, in the far future, under SSP5-8.5 scenarios, the return period of the design flood with a 100-year return period will become 38 years and 31 years for Wangjiaba and Wujiadu stations, respectively.Discussion: The study enhances a more realistic understanding that the occurrence of future extreme precipitation and floods is projected to be more frequent and severe, thereby resulting in an urgent imperative to develop pertinent adaptation strategies to enhance social resilience toward the warming climate.