Thesis
Hydrologic sensitivity of a critical Turkish watershed to inform water resource management in an altered climate
Washington State University
Master of Science (MS), Washington State University
12/2019
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7273/000004187
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/125150
Abstract
Anatolian lands, which form most of Turkey, with their fertile topsoil and abundant water resources, are critical for sustaining the food, energy, and water needs of about 80 million. The Kızılırmak River basin is a critical watershed in Anatolia that is particularly vulnerable to global warming, given that its headwaters are dominated by snowmelt. Quantifying the climate sensitivity of the streamflow of the upper watershed is important for understanding the annual and seasonal availability of water to the basin. As an alternative to Global Climate Model (GCM)-driven projections, we used a sensitivity-based approach to focus on the quantification of the vulnerability of the water supply to the potential range of future climatic changes that are possible in this region. Sensitivity analysis can provide water managers insight into the potential risks of climate change, allowing them to choose the most appropriate adaptive actions. In this study, the sensitivity of the Upper Kızılırmak basin to climate change was investigated by using the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) macroscale hydrologic model. Because GCMs for the region consistently project increasing temperature and decreases in precipitation, precipitation was perturbed by multiplying the precipitation by 70%, 80%, 90%, 100%, and 110%; the temperature was perturbed by increasing the temperature by 0.5, 1, and 1.5°C. The sensitivity of the basin to streamflow under each of these perturbed or "reference" climates was quantified. We show that streamflow sensitivity to temperature is negative for all warming scenarios (although this sensitivity reveals a non-monotonic response to the reference climates, with sensitivity becoming more strongly negative after 0.5°C of warming). Precipitation sensitivity increases nonlinearly as precipitation is decreased in the reference climates. These results suggest that there will be heightened difficulty in managing water resources in the region due to the following setbacks: 1) water availability will shift away from the summer season of peak water demand due to the warming effects on the snowpack, 2) annual water availability will likely decrease due to a combination of warming and lower precipitation, and 3) streamflow sensitivity to hydroclimatic variability will increase, meaning that water managers will likely need to plan for a system that is more sensitive to weather variations. Additional research is needed to develop climate change adaptation strategies that consider all of these changes.
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Details
- Title
- Hydrologic sensitivity of a critical Turkish watershed to inform water resource management in an altered climate
- Creators
- Furkan Yunus Emre Cevahir
- Contributors
- Jennifer C Adam (Advisor) - Washington State University, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Department of
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Civil and Environmental Engineering, Department of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Science (MS), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University
- Identifiers
- 99900896440101842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis