Numerical assessment of climate change impact on the hydrological regime of a small Mediterranean river, Lesvos Island, Greece

Abstract

Abstract Frequency of flash floods and droughts in the Mediterranean climate zone is expected to rise in the coming years due to change of its climate. The assessment of the climate change impact at a basin scale is essential for developing mitigation and adaptation plans. This study analyses the variation of the hydrologic regime of a small Mediterranean river (the Kalloni river in Lesvos Island, Greece) by the examination of possible future climate change scenarios. The hydrologic response of the basin was simulated based on Hydrologic Modeling System developed by the Hydrologic Engineering Center (HEC-HMS). Weather Generator version 6 from the Long Ashton Research Station (LARS-WG 6.0) was utilized to forecast climate data from 2021 to 2080. These forecasted climate data were then assigned as weather inputs to HEC-HMS to downscale the climate predictions of five large-scale general circulation models (GCMs) for three possible emission scenarios (such as RCP 2.6, RCP 4.5, and RCP 8.5). The alteration of the Kalloni hydrologic regime is evaluated by comparing GCMs based estimates of future streamflow and evapotranspiration with business as usual (BaU) scenario. Variation was noted in seasonal and in annual scale forecasting of long-term average discharges, which show increasing trend in autumn and decreasing in summer and there is observed a general upward trend of actual evapotranspiration losses.