Title: Water Resources Impact Assessment Under Climate Change Scenarios in Mediterranean Watersheds published at Water Resources Management.

 IPLeiria authores: Sandra Mourato

 

Main Results:

In this study the impacts of 15 climate change scenarios on water availability in southern Portugal were analyzed. The impacts were evaluated with a physically based and spatially distributed hydrologic model, SHETRAN.

Climate models project a change in precipitation from +1.5% to -65% and an increase in temperature from +2.7ºC to +5.9ºC. This trend in climate change is reflected in the evapotranspiration increase and in the annual runoff that decreases between 13% and 90%. The runoff reduction is higher at all watersheds and for all 15 climate change scenarios in autumn and spring. The runoff decrease is also higher in the Guadiana river basin which is already under significant water stress.