the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Elevational dependence of climate change impacts on water resources in an Alpine catchment
Abstract. An increasing interest is directed toward understanding impacts of climate change on water related sectors in a particularly vulnerable area such as the Alpine region. We present a distributed hydrological analysis at scale significant for water management for pristine, present-days, and projected future climate conditions. We used the upper Rhone basin (Switzerland) as a test case for understanding anthropogenic impacts on water resources and flood risk in the Alpine area. The upper Rhone basin includes reservoirs, river diversions and irrigated areas offering the opportunity to study the interaction between climate change effects and hydraulic infrastructures. We downscale climate model realizations using a methodology that partially account for the uncertainty in climate change projections explicitly simulating stochastic variability of precipitation and air temperature. We show how climate change effects on streamflow propagate from high elevation headwater catchments to the river in the major valley. Changes in the natural hydrological regime imposed by the existing hydraulic infrastructure are likely larger than climate change signals expected by the middle of the 21th century in most of the river network. Despite a strong uncertainty induced by stochastic climate variability, we identified an elevational dependence of climate change impacts on streamflow with a severe reduction due to the missing contribution of water from ice melt at high-elevation and a dampened effect downstream. The presence of reservoirs and river diversions tends to decrease the uncertainty in future streamflow predictions that are conversely very large for highly glacierized catchments. Despite uncertainty, reduced ice cover and ice melt are likely to have significant implication for aquatic biodiversity and hydropower production. The impacts can emerge without any additional climate warming. A decrease of August-September discharge and an increase of hourly-daily maximum flows appear as the most robust projected changes for the different parts of the catchment. However, it is unlikely that major changes in total runoff for the entire upper Rhone basin will occur in the next decades.
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- Supplement
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RC C719: 'Reviewer comments to HESSD, 10, 3743–3794, 2013', Anonymous Referee #1, 09 Apr 2013
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AC C3209: 'Final Response to Anonymous Referee #1', Simone Fatichi, 17 Jul 2013
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AC C3209: 'Final Response to Anonymous Referee #1', Simone Fatichi, 17 Jul 2013
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SC C780: 'Development of Topkapi', David Finger, 14 Apr 2013
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AC C933: 'First Response to the reviewer comments of Referee #1', Simone Fatichi, 20 Apr 2013
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SC C948: 'Comments on 'Elevational dependence of climate change in Rhone by S. Fatichi et al'', Kazi Rahman, 21 Apr 2013
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AC C1285: 'Response to the comment of K. Rahman', Simone Fatichi, 29 Apr 2013
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AC C1285: 'Response to the comment of K. Rahman', Simone Fatichi, 29 Apr 2013
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RC C1118: 'Major concerns', Anonymous Referee #2, 24 Apr 2013
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AC C1273: 'Response to Anonymous Referee #2', Simone Fatichi, 29 Apr 2013
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AC C1273: 'Response to Anonymous Referee #2', Simone Fatichi, 29 Apr 2013
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RC C1554: 'General review', Anonymous Referee #3, 08 May 2013
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AC C1721: 'Response to Anonymous Referee #3', Simone Fatichi, 14 May 2013
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AC C1721: 'Response to Anonymous Referee #3', Simone Fatichi, 14 May 2013
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EC C1746: 'Summary of discussion', Bettina Schaefli, 15 May 2013
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AC C3211: 'Response to Editorial Summary', Simone Fatichi, 17 Jul 2013
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AC C3211: 'Response to Editorial Summary', Simone Fatichi, 17 Jul 2013
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EC C1765: 'Editor review', Bettina Schaefli, 16 May 2013
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AC C3212: 'Response to Editorial Review', Simone Fatichi, 17 Jul 2013
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AC C3212: 'Response to Editorial Review', Simone Fatichi, 17 Jul 2013
- Printer-friendly version
- Supplement
-
RC C719: 'Reviewer comments to HESSD, 10, 3743–3794, 2013', Anonymous Referee #1, 09 Apr 2013
-
AC C3209: 'Final Response to Anonymous Referee #1', Simone Fatichi, 17 Jul 2013
-
AC C3209: 'Final Response to Anonymous Referee #1', Simone Fatichi, 17 Jul 2013
-
SC C780: 'Development of Topkapi', David Finger, 14 Apr 2013
-
AC C933: 'First Response to the reviewer comments of Referee #1', Simone Fatichi, 20 Apr 2013
-
SC C948: 'Comments on 'Elevational dependence of climate change in Rhone by S. Fatichi et al'', Kazi Rahman, 21 Apr 2013
-
AC C1285: 'Response to the comment of K. Rahman', Simone Fatichi, 29 Apr 2013
-
AC C1285: 'Response to the comment of K. Rahman', Simone Fatichi, 29 Apr 2013
-
RC C1118: 'Major concerns', Anonymous Referee #2, 24 Apr 2013
-
AC C1273: 'Response to Anonymous Referee #2', Simone Fatichi, 29 Apr 2013
-
AC C1273: 'Response to Anonymous Referee #2', Simone Fatichi, 29 Apr 2013
-
RC C1554: 'General review', Anonymous Referee #3, 08 May 2013
-
AC C1721: 'Response to Anonymous Referee #3', Simone Fatichi, 14 May 2013
-
AC C1721: 'Response to Anonymous Referee #3', Simone Fatichi, 14 May 2013
-
EC C1746: 'Summary of discussion', Bettina Schaefli, 15 May 2013
-
AC C3211: 'Response to Editorial Summary', Simone Fatichi, 17 Jul 2013
-
AC C3211: 'Response to Editorial Summary', Simone Fatichi, 17 Jul 2013
-
EC C1765: 'Editor review', Bettina Schaefli, 16 May 2013
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AC C3212: 'Response to Editorial Review', Simone Fatichi, 17 Jul 2013
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AC C3212: 'Response to Editorial Review', Simone Fatichi, 17 Jul 2013
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Cited
21 citations as recorded by crossref.
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- Changes in glaciers in the Swiss Alps and impact on basin hydrology: Current state of the art and future research F. Pellicciotti et al. 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2014.04.022
- Exploring the hydrological impact of increasing urbanisation on a tropical river catchment of the metropolitan Jakarta, Indonesia F. Remondi et al. 10.1016/j.scs.2015.10.001
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- A stochastic model for high-resolution space-time precipitation simulation A. Paschalis et al. 10.1002/2013WR014437
- Alpine aquatic ecosystem conservation policy in a changing climate K. Khamis et al. 10.1016/j.envsci.2013.10.004
- Managing uncertainty in flood protection planning with climate projections B. Dittes et al. 10.5194/hess-22-2511-2018
- A probabilistic sediment cascade model of sediment transfer in the Illgraben G. Bennett et al. 10.1002/2013WR013806
- Robust estimates of climate-induced hydrological change in a temperate mountainous region N. Köplin et al. 10.1007/s10584-013-1015-x
- Let-It-Rain: a web application for stochastic point rainfall generation at ungaged basins and its applicability in runoff and flood modeling D. Kim et al. 10.1007/s00477-016-1234-6
- Projecting hydropower production under future climates: a guide for decision‐makers and modelers to interpret and design climate change impact assessments B. Schaefli 10.1002/wat2.1083
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- The benefit of climatological and calibrated reforecast data for simulating hydrological droughts in Switzerland S. Jörg-Hess et al. 10.1002/met.1474
- Does internal climate variability overwhelm climate change signals in streamflow? The upper Po and Rhone basin case studies S. Fatichi et al. 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2013.12.014
- Structural and functional responses of invertebrate communities to climate change and flow regulation in alpine catchments D. Bruno et al. 10.1111/gcb.14581
- When timing matters—misdesigned dam filling impacts hydropower sustainability M. Zaniolo et al. 10.1038/s41467-021-23323-5
- Governing and managing water resources under changing hydro-climatic contexts: The case of the upper Rhone basin M. Clarvis et al. 10.1016/j.envsci.2013.11.005
- Climate change impacts on hydropower in the Swiss and Italian Alps L. Gaudard et al. 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2013.10.012
