Sensitivity of Surface Runoff to Drought and Climate Change: Application for Shared River Basins

• Main Authors: Furat A. M. Al-Faraj, Miklas Scholz, Dimitris Tigkas
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2014-10-01
• Series: Water
• Subjects: climate alteration; transboundary watershed; river flow; Medbasin model; reconnaissance drought index; streamflow drought index; nomograph; water management; soil storage capacity; runoff curve number
• Online Access: http://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/6/10/3033

This study quantifies the sensitivity of surface runoff to drought and climate change in the Diyala watershed shared between Iraq and Iran. This was achieved through a combined use of a wide range of changes in the amount of precipitation (a decline between 0% and −40%) and in the potential evapotranspiration rate (an increase between 0% and +30%). The Medbasin-monthly rainfall-runoff model (Medbasin-M) was used for runoff simulation. The model was calibrated for twelve hydrologic years (1962−1973), and the simulation results were validated with the observed annual runoff for nine water years (1974−1982). For the calibration period, the correlation coefficient (r), the root mean squared error (RMSE), the mean absolute error (MAE) and the index of agreement (IoA) were 0.893, 2.117, 1.733 and 0.852, respectively. The corresponding values for validation were 0.762, 1.250, 1.093 and 0.863, in this order. The Reconnaissance Drought Index (RDI) and the Streamflow Drought Index (SDI) were analysed using DrinC software. Three nomographs were introduced to quantify the projected reductions in the annual runoff and the anticipated RDI and SDI values, respectively. The proposed methodology offers a simple, powerful and generic approach for predicting the rate of change (%) in annual runoff under climate change scenarios.