Journal of Hydrology 527 (2015) 281–291

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Journal of Hydrology
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jhydrol

Impact of climate change on floods in the Brahmaputra basin using

CMIP5 decadal predictions
Tushar Apurv a,⇑, Rajeshwar Mehrotra b, Ashish Sharma b, Manish Kumar Goyal c, Subashisa Dutta c
a
Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, 208016 Uttar Pradesh, India
b
School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The University of New South Wales, Sydney 2052, Australia
c
Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, 781039 Assam, India

a r t i c l e i n f o s u m m a r y

Article history: Climate change has the potential to intensify the hydrological cycle, leading to more intense precipitation
Received 27 February 2014 with associated changes in the intensity, frequency and severity of floods. Climate variability and change
Received in revised form 23 April 2015 beyond a few years to a few decades ahead have significant social, economic, and environmental impli-
Accepted 25 April 2015
cations. It is believed that some aspects of this decadal variability could be predictable for a decade or
Available online 6 May 2015
This manuscript was handled by
longer in advance. Keeping this in mind, phase five of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project
Konstantine P. Georgakakos, Editor-in-Chief, (CMIP5), for the first time, provides 10–30 years predictions obtained from the General Circulation
with the assistance of Ana P. Barros, Models (GCMs).
Associate Editor This study aims to analyse the CMIP5 decadal predictions for precipitation over five sub-basins of river
Brahmaputra. Daily precipitation data of five GCMs, namely F-GOALS-g2, BCC-CSM1-1, IPSL-CM5A,
Keywords: CanCM4 and MRI-CGCM3 are used for this assessment. Empirical relationships between the basin aver-
Floods aged rainfall wet spell (storm) properties and the characteristics of the floods are formulated for storms
CMIP5 which lead to significant short-term flood response. Following this, the changes in the flood behaviour in
Decadal predictions the future are derived on the basis of changes in the characteristics of wet rainfall spells in 2010–2020.
Quantile–quantile transform The results suggest an increase in the number of spells with higher rainfall and longer duration which can
Rainfall spells
lead to increase in peak flood and the total flood volume.
Cumulative distribution functions (CDFs)
Ó 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The global mean surface temperature change for the period
2016–2035 relative to 1986–2005 will likely be in the range of
0.3–0.7 °C (IPCC, 2013). The temperature changes are expected to
alter major hydrological processes in the water cycle. On a time
scale of a few years to a few decades ahead, future regional changes
in weather patterns and climate, and the corresponding impacts,
will also be strongly influenced by natural climate variations.
Observed changes in many extreme weather and climate events
since about 1950 suggest an increased risk of flooding including
more extreme precipitation, higher peak river flows, increased
intensity of most extreme tropical cyclones (IPCC, 2013; World
Bank, 2013).
Over the last few decades, a warming trend has begun to
emerge over South Asia, particularly in India (Kumar et al., 2010).
This warming is expected to increase the number and severity of
flood events in India in near future (Eriksson et al., 2009;
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +91 7754916212.
E-mail address: tushar.apurv@yahoo.com (T. Apurv).
Ministry of Environment and Forest, India 2012). The flood risk
over India has increased significantly in last few decades
(Guhathakurta et al., 2011).
In north-eastern part of India, Brahmaputra is considered as an
important river for irrigation and transportation in the region. The
River, with the highest specific discharge in the world (Datta and
Singh, 2004), is known to cause flooding in large areas. During
the flood season, there are a number of long-duration flood waves
that pass through the main river (Karmaker and Dutta, 2010). In
contrast, many tributaries of Brahmaputra are flashy in nature,
which increase the chance of significant damages due to extreme
events. During the last ten years, the river has seen some of the
most destructive floods in its history. The floods of 2009 affected
almost a million people and killed over 200 people (Sphere India,
2009). In 2012, at least 124 people died and 2.2 million people
were forced to evacuate their homes as monsoon rains inundated
large areas (Indian Red Cross Society, 2012).
There have been only a limited number of studies conducted for
this region for predicting the impacts of climate change on floods.
In a recent study, Ghosh and Dutta (2012) investigated impact of
climate change on flood characteristics in Brahmaputra basin using

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2015.04.056
0022-1694/Ó 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
282 T. Apurv et al. / Journal of Hydrology 527 (2015) 281–291
a macro-scale distributed hydrological model. The study used RCM
simulated rainfall as input for the distributed hydrologic model
developed for the basin. The analysis revealed that although the
number of flood events would decrease in future (2010–2100),
the peak discharge and duration of the floods would increase.
Gain et al. (2011) used a discharge-weighted ensemble model
based on inputs from 12 GCMs to a global hydrological model to
predict trends in high and low flows in Brahmaputra. The study
predicted a very strong increase in annual peak flow for the river,
which may have severe impact on flooding. Mirza (2002) used cli-
mate change scenarios from four GCMs as input into hydrological
models for predicting the change in discharges of Ganga,
Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers of India. The results of the study
demonstrated a substantial increase in mean peak discharges in
the rivers of Ganges–Brahmaputra basin.
Phase five of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project
(CMIP5) for the first time, in addition to long-term, also includes
near-term simulations (10–30-years hindcasts/predictions) initial-
ized from the climate states every five years starting from 1960 to
2005. As these models are initialised using observations, it is
expected that they will provide better information on the changes
at least on a timescale of a few years to a decade or longer (Meehl
et al., 2009). Graham et al. (2011) mentioned that initialisation also
improves skill at regional scales, particularly at multi-annual
ranges (up to 5 years). In a recent study, Mehrotra et al. (2014)
assessed the potential skill of the multi-model decadal hindcasts
of precipitation and other atmospheric variables at annual and
multi-annual time-scales Australia. They found that while precipi-
tation exhibited very limited skill, higher predictive skills were
obtained for air temperature and geopotential height variables.
This research seeks to investigate the changes in the frequency
and magnitude of extreme floods in north-eastern part of India in
the near future using decadal predictions of climate models as avail-
able through CMIP5 database. By extreme floods we refer to the
observed flood events which have produced significant peak stages
and flood volumes, above a predefined threshold, for a given spell
average rainfall. Rather than adopting the usual approach of using
a hydrologic model, in this study we develop empirical relationships
between the basin averaged rainfall spell (storm) properties and the
characteristics of the floods which follow them. These empirical
relationships have been developed for selected monsoon storms
which have led to significant short-term flood responses. These rela-
tionships and rainfall spell properties in future are subsequently
used to estimate the changes in the flood characteristics in future.
Please note that although our study and the study performed by
Ghosh and Dutta (2012) share a common objective of evaluating
the impact of climate change on extreme floods in Brahmaputra
basin, these follow altogether different approaches and datasets.
The study performed by Ghosh and Dutta (2012) used a physically
based macro scale distributed hydrological model for prediction of
flood characteristics such as peak discharge, flood duration, etc.
They used metrological projections from a Regional Climate
Model (RCM) to evaluate the changes in the flood characteristics
during 2070–2100. In our study, we evaluated the changes in the
floods in the near future (2010–2020) by using the developed
empirical relationships between flood characteristics and basin
averaged rainfall spell properties. Also, the dataset used by our
study are CMIP5 decadal predictions, which are actually GCM sim-
ulations initialized with observed climatic state.
2. Study area
2.1. The Brahmaputra basin
‘‘The Brahmaputra River originates from the cold dry plateau of
Tibet (where it is known as Tsangpo) and flows through the
Himalayan slopes to enter India. In India, it flows through the allu-
vial plains of Assam valley for about 710 km, and enters the deltaic
plains of Bangladesh to deplete into the Bay of Bengal ‘‘(Ghosh and
Dutta, 2012).
In the alluvial plains of North-Eastern India, the Brahmaputra
flows in a highly braided channel along with a large number of
mid-channel and lateral bars. The average width of the
Brahmaputra River varies from 6 to18 km with a few nodal (con-
straint) reaches such as Tezpur (width 3.6 km) and Guwahati
(width1.2 km). Since it is a large braided river, daily water levels
(gauge) are measured at these nodal reaches. Bed level aggrada-
tion/degradation commonly occurs at the nodal reaches through-
out a year. The average annual runoff of the river is 537.2 km3
(Ghosh and Dutta, 2012). The river gets runoff contribution from
more than 100 tributaries of which 15 in the north bank and 10
in the south bank are fairly large (Sarma, 2004).
Keeping in mind the importance of the spatio-temporal vari-
ability of the flows and resulting floods in the Brahmaputra basin,
five major tributaries of Kulsi, Kameng, Subansiri, Dihing and Siang
sub-basins are considered in the study (Fig. 1).
2.2. Meteorological characteristics
The general circulation over the study region undergoes abrupt
seasonal changes during late spring and early summer due to tro-
pospheric warming over the Asian landmass, and causes early
summer rain (He et al., 1987). The study region receives high
intensity rainfall events during the four monsoon months namely,
May, June, July and August. For this reason, rainfall in these four
months has been considered in the present study. A very important
characteristic of the Indian monsoon is the active and break spells
of the monsoon (Rajeevan et al., 2010). For example, Fig. 2 shows
the rainfall variation in the four months of the rainy season of
the year 1991 at Kulsi basin. The wet spells can be easily identified
by calculating the number of consecutive days when rainfall is
greater than a pre-defined threshold. In order to negate the possi-
bility of any measurement recording error and to smoothen out the
abnormal daily fluctuations, moving average of four consecutive
days, which is the average of the rainfall of the previous three days
and the current day is adopted in the present study.
2.3. Flood characteristics
Intense rainfall spells frequently occur over the region and
cause fast hydrological response in the form of flood waves. Due
to large contributing area with dense drainage network, flood
waves prevail for a longer duration with significant flood lift. A typ-
ical stage graph of the river Brahmaputra at the gauging station of
Guwahati during monsoon period is depicted in Fig. 3a.
According to Karmaker and Dutta (2010), a typical hydrograph
can be separated into two components; namely flood waves and
monsoonal response. Monsoon response is the gradual increase
in river discharge which is due to gradual saturation of the river
basin as the wet season progresses, whereas the flood wave is
the fast response of the river basin after the occurrence of a spell
of wet days. Fig. 3a shows the monsoon response in black dotted
line and Fig. 3b shows the monsoon response subtracted from
the stage hydrograph which are called flood waves. Thus, we
would like to emphasise that in this study flood waves refers to
the flow in the rivers after the monsoon response has been sub-
tracted and extreme floods are those flood waves which have
had substantial peak stage and flood volume. Six distinct flood
waves can be noticed in Fig. 3b.
As it can be seen in Fig. 3a, the stage hydrograph keeps on rising
as we go late into the wet season due to gradual wetting of the
catchment. The purpose of subtracting the monsoon response is
 T. Apurv et al. / Journal of Hydrology 527 (2015) 281–291
Fig. 1. The Brahmaputra River and the five sub-basins considered.
Fig. 2. Observed daily rainfall variation at Kulsi in the year 1991, the black line at
any day represents the moving average of the rainfall of the present day and the
preceding three days Source: APHRODITE.
to reduce, to a certain extent, the effect of time on the characteris-
tics of floods so that they can be related to the characteristics of
antecedent rainfall spell.
3. Data and methodology
We use CMIP5 daily decadal hindcasts/predictions to investi-
gate and predict the changes in the characteristics of rainfall spells
in the near future (2010–2020). It may be noted that as these dec-
adal GCM hindcasts/predictions are initialized at defined points in
the past, these are quite different from the standard long-term
GCM simulations/projections.
3.1. Data
Observed rainfall data at daily scale for the period 1960–2005
has been taken from APHRODITE (Asian Precipitation highly
283
Resolved Observational Data Integration Towards Evaluation of
Water Resources) website (www.chikyu.ac.jp/precip) for the five
sub-basins considered. The dataset has a resolution of
0.25°  0.25°. Daily stage records during the monsoon period
(May–August) for 15 years from 1987 to 2003 (with two years of
missing data) are obtained from river gauging station at Guwahati.
The GCM data is obtained from the CMIP5 data portal website
http://pcmdi9.llnl.gov/. Table 1 shows the resolutions of the
GCMs considered (Taylor et al., 2012). For each GCM, many ensem-
bles are available, which are projections initialized using different
initial conditions. In this study we have used multi-ensemble mean
for each GCM.
3.2. Relation between characteristics of flood waves and rainfall spells
Out of a few important characteristics of rainfall, the two basic
characteristics of rainfall spells namely, spell length and spell vol-
ume or spell average rain are associated with the formulation of
flood waves and are considered here. Spell average rain is the total
rainfall occurring in a spell divided by the length of the spell.
Similarly, we also analyse a few important characteristics of flood
waves like flood peak stage and total flood volume using the
method described in Karmaker and Dutta (2010). As shown in
Fig. 3b, flood volume is the sum of flood lifts on all days lying
within a flood wave, where flood lift is calculated by subtracting
monsoon response from total stage. Finally, peak flood stage refers
to the maximum flood lift during a flood wave.
In order to filter out day to day rainfall variations, we construct
a time series of consecutive four day moving average rainfall at
each day, which is the average of rainfall of the present day and
its three preceding days. In addition, as our aim is to predict the
changes in characteristics of extreme floods at Guwahati, we
284 T. Apurv et al. / Journal of Hydrology 527 (2015) 281–291

52 Stage
(a) Monsoon Response

50
52 (a) Rainfall 140
51 4 per. Mov. Avg. (Rainfall) 120
50
48 Peak Stage

Rainfall (mm)
49 100
Stage (m)

of the flood

Stage (m)
wave 48
46 80
47
Stage Hydrograph
46 60
44 Duraon of Monsoon Response
flood wave 45 40
44
42 20
43
42 0
40 120 140 160 180 200 220 240
120 140 160 180 200 220 240 260 280 Julian Day
Julian Day
Rainfall Flood Waves 4 per. Mov. Avg. (Rainfall)
10 140 5
(b) (b)
9 4.5
120
4
8

Flood li (m)

100 Flood wave 3.5

Rainfall (mm)
7
80 3
Stage (m)

Peak Stage Rainfall Spell

6 of the flood 2.5
60 2
5
40 1.5
4 Flood Waves
1
3 20
0.5
2 0 0
1 120 140 160 180 200 220 240
Julian Day
0
120 140 160 180 200 220 240 260 280
Fig. 4. Identification of rainfall spell and the corresponding flood wave generated.
Duraon of
Julian Day (a) Area averaged rain of five locations considered and stage record at Guwahati for
flood wave
the year 1987. (b) Identification of rainfall spells and corresponding flood waves
Fig. 3. (a) Stage graph of Brahmaputra at Guwahati in 1988 shown in blue line, the after subtraction of monsoon response. Source of Rainfall data: APHRODITE.
black dashed line shows the monsoon response. (b) Flood waves obtained after
subtracting monsoon response from stage hydrograph. (For interpretation of the (a) flood peak stage and spell average rain, (b) flood volume and
references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of spell average rain and (c) flood duration and rainfall spell length
this article.) (Figs. 5–7). The relationships shown in these figures have been
developed only for extreme floods, i.e. flood waves which are gen-
erated by an identified rainfall spell and have substantial peak
Table 1 stage and volume.
Resolutions of GCMs (Taylor et al., 2012). Figs. 5 and 6 indicate that the characteristics of extreme floods
GCM Resolution like peak lift and flood volume are related to spell average rainfall
by a positive linear function. This means that if the spell average
BCC-CSM1-1 2.79°N  2.8125°E
CanCM4 2.79°N  2.8125°E rain will increase these two properties of the extreme flood events
FGOALs-g2 2.79°N  2.8125°E will also have a tendency to increase. Also, Fig. 7 shows that the
IPSL-CM5a 1.89482°N  3.75°E duration of flood wave is related to the length of rainfall spell by
MRI-CGCM3 1.1121°N  1.125°E a positive linear relation, indicating a tendency of flood duration
to increase with increase in the duration of rainfall spells.
It is worth pointing out here that due to the limited length of
the available rainfall and flood data, our analysis relies on the uni-
consider area averaged rainfall time series of five sub-basins and
variate statistical approach, where only one relationship is anal-
identify those significant rainfall events that produce extreme
ysed at a time. Although, in the literature, various approaches are
flood waves. We consider the rainfall spell to start when the rain-
available for the assessment of multivariate events, ranging from
fall exceeds a certain threshold and to end when it falls below the
simple linear analysis to full multivariate probabilistic analytical
threshold for the first time. This threshold is selected in such a
solutions. The past couple of years have witnessed a growing inter-
manner so that the rainfall spell defined using it produces a flood
est in applying copulas and copula-based methods in hydrology
wave within five days of the beginning of the spell, as the time
(Salvatori and De Michele, 2004; Favre et al., 2004; Zhang and
of travel from the foothills of Himalaya (in Pasighat) to Guwahati
Singh, 2006; Grimaldi and Serinaldi, 2006). Realising that the sim-
is 5 days (Datta and Singh, 2004). The five day window considered
plified approach adopted here may influence the results, we
here is expected to average out the possible influence of the differ-
include output of multiple GCMs to consider the uncertainty aspect
ing time of concentrations of the catchments on the final food
in our analysis (Beven and Binley, 1992; Gupta et al., 2005).
waves at Guwahati. A preliminary analysis conducted on the area
averaged rainfall and stage data suggested that most of the rainfall
spells defined using a threshold of 10 mm produced a flood wave 3.3. Methodology
within five days of the rainfall occurrence. Fig. 4 shows a typical
rainfall spell and the corresponding flood wave generated by it. In the study, we first calculate the changes in rainfall spell char-
Amongst the different characteristics of rainfall spell and floods acteristics in 2010–2020 using the CMIP5 decadal predictions and
and their corresponding associations, we observe three important thereafter predict the changes in the extreme flood wave charac-
relationships between rainfall spells and flood parameters, namely, teristics using the developed relationships in Figs. 5–7.
 T. Apurv et al. / Journal of Hydrology 527 (2015) 281–291 285

4.5 1
Extreme Floods 0.9
4
0.8

Cumulave Probability
Relaon for Extreme Floods
3.5 y = 0.1331x - 1.0575
0.7
R² = 0.803
Flood Peak Stage (m)

Original CDF
3 0.6
Observed
0.5
2.5 Bias Corrected
0.4
2 0.3

1.5 0.2
0.1
1
0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140
0.5
Daily Rainfall (mm)
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 Fig. 8. Shift in daily rainfall CDF after bias correction at Kulsi for the GCM BCC-
Spell Average Rain (mm) CSM1-1.

Fig. 5. The relationship between spell average rain and flood speak stage for
extreme floods. Source of Rainfall data: APHRODITE, source of stage data: gauging Table 2
station at Guwahati 1987–2003. Summary of bias correction and validation.

GCM Location Training R2 Testing R2

(a) Performance for daily rainfall
45 Extreme Floods
BCC-CSM1-1 Dihing 0.99 0.87
Relaon for extreme floods Kameng 0.99 0.91
40
Kulsi 0.99 0.89
35 Siang 0.99 0.82
y = 1.4043x - 14.066
R² = 0.903 Subansiri 0.99 0.91
Flood Volume (m)

30
CanCM4 Dihing 0.98 0.93
25 Kameng 0.99 0.98
Kulsi 0.99 0.91
20 Siang 0.99 0.86
15 Subansiri 0.99 0.85
FGOALs-g2 Dihing 0.99 0.91
10
Kameng 0.99 0.92
5 Kulsi 0.99 0.90
Siang 0.99 0.78
0 Subansiri 0.99 0.63
8 13 18 23 28 33 38 43
Spell Average Rain (mm) IPSL-CM5A Dihing 0.99 0.91
Kameng 0.99 0.91
Fig. 6. The relationship between flood volume and spell average rainfall for Kulsi 0.99 0.88
extreme floods. Source of Rainfall data: APHRODITE, source of stage data: gauging Siang 0.99 0.83
station at Guwahati 1987–2003. Subansiri 0.99 0.90
MRI-CGCM3 Dihing 0.99 0.98
Kameng 0.99 0.75
35 Relaon for Extreme Kulsi 0.99 0.88
Floods Siang 0.99 0.97
y = 0.8725x + 7.4774
30 R² = 0.8474 Subansiri 0.99 0.95
Extreme Floods
Flood Duraon (days)

25 GCM AARE: training dataset AARE: testing dataset

(b) Performance for spell length
20
BCC-CSM1-1 0.09 0.15
15 CANCM4 0.05 0.10
FGOALs-g2 0.07 0.15
10 IPSL-CM5A 0.08 0.24
MRI-CGCM3 0.08 0.20
5
(c) Performance for spell average rain
0 BCC-CSM1-1 0.02 0.11
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 CANCM4 0.05 0.07
Rainfall Spell Length (days) FGOALs-g2 0.06 0.05
IPSL-CM5A 0.04 0.18
MRI-CGCM3 0.02 0.20
Fig. 7. The relationship between flood duration and spell length for extreme floods.
Source of Rainfall data: APHRODITE, source of stage data: gauging station at
Guwahati 1987–2003.

interpolation (Willmott et al., 1985) is carried out to obtain all

3.3.1. Interpolation GCMs output to the APHRODITE grid points.
As different GCMs have different spatial resolutions (Table 1),
number of GCM grid points covering the entire Brahmaputra basin, 3.3.2. Bias correction
varies with GCM. Additionally, the GCM grid points do not match The GCM decadal simulations exhibit systematic differences
with APHRODITE rainfall grid points. In order to bring all GCMs from the model hindcast as well as the observed climate, making
to a common grid size, a linear inverse square distance based it necessary to correct for this bias before validating or interpreting
286 T. Apurv et al. / Journal of Hydrology 527 (2015) 281–291

30000 1
(a)
0.9
25000
0.8

Cumulave Probability
0.7
20000
Rainfall (mm)

Dihing 0.6 Observed Spells 1960 -

2000
15000 Kameng 0.5
Weighted GCM results
Kulsi
0.4 1960-2000
10000 Siang
0.3 Weighted GCM results
Subansiri 2010-2020
5000 0.2
0.1
0 0
1960-70 1970-80 1980-90 1990-2000 2010-2020 0 10 20 30 40
Period Spell Length (days)

Fig. 9. Total monsoon seasonal rainfall variation in rainy season (May–August). The
20

Percentage change in spell length

rainfall at each location during 2010–2020 has been calculated by weighted average (b)
of GCMs for each location. Source of Rainfall data: during 1960–2000 is APHRODITE.
10

distribuon
1
(a) -10
0.9
0.8 -20
Cumulave Probability

0.7 -30
0.6
Observed Spells 1960 - -40
0.5 2000 Minimum Q1 Median Q3 Maximum
0.4 Weighted GCM results
1960-2000 Fig. 11. (a) Observed spell length CDF for the period 1960–2000 in blue, CDF of
0.3
Weighted GCM results spell length calculated by weighted average of GCMs for 1960–2000 in red and CDF
0.2 2010-2020 of spell length for 2010–2020 obtained by weighted average of GCM in green. (b)
Percentage changes in parameters of distribution of spell length from 1960–2000 to
0.1
2010–2020. The weighted average GCM results for 1960–2000 have been used for
0 comparison. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the
10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
reader is referred to the web version of this article.) Source: APHRODITE.
Spell Average Rain (mm)
Percentage change in spell average rain

10 has been used for each GCM and for each sub-basin. We have used
(b)
75% of the available dataset (1960–1990) for training and the
8
remaining 25% (1990–2000) for testing the NBC models. Fig. 8
6 shows an example of shift in CDF of rainfall after bias correction
distribuon

4 has been applied. The CDFs shown in Fig. 8 are only for daily rain-
2
0 over simulates low rainfall events.
-2
-4
Minimum Q1
Fig. 10. (a) Observed spell average rainfall CDF for the period 1960–2000 in blue,
CDF of spell average rainfall calculated by weighted average of GCMs for 1960–2000
in red and CDF of spell average rainfall for 2010–2020 obtained by weighted
average of GCM in green. (b) Percentage changes in parameters of distribution of
spell average rain from 1960–2000 to 2010–2020. The weighted average GCM
results for 1960–2000 have been used for comparison. (For interpretation of the
references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of
this article.) Source: APHRODITE.
the predictions. The Nested Bias Correction (NBC), proposed by
Johnson and Sharma (2012) is applied in the study at daily,
monthly and annual scales. NBC progressively corrects distribu-
tional and persistence biases progressively from smaller to longer
time scale. In NBC, the distributional attributes are represented
by mean and standard deviation and persistence by lag 1 autocor-
relation coefficient.
We have developed the NBC model on daily GCM precipitation
data of the entire year from 1960 to 2000. A different NBC model
fall during wet season (May–August). From the figure it can be
seen that the GCM under simulates high rainfall events and slightly
The summary of results of bias correction is shown in Table 2.
Table 2(a) compares the CDF of daily rainfall in training and testing
periods. The high R2 value for both training and validation datasets
Median Q3 Maximum
indicates that the bias correction methodology adopted is success-
ful in transforming the CDF of raw GCM data to that of the
observed data. Table 2(b) and (c) shows the average absolute rela-
tive error (AARE) for spell length and spell average rain CDFs
respectively. To calculate the CDF of spell properties we have used
average of bias corrected daily rainfall of the five sub-basins for
each GCM. Similarly for the observed CDF, the average of observed
rainfall of five sub-basins has been used. AARE has been calculated
by considering 10 equally spaced points on GCM and observed
CDFs. It can be seen that relative errors are smaller for spell aver-
age rain as compared to spell length. Also, it can be seen that GCMs
BCC-CSM1-1, CANCM4 and FGOALs-g2 are simulating spell proper-
ties with very low errors whereas for the remaining two GCMs the
errors are comparatively higher.
3.3.3. Weighting of GCMs and generation of CDFs for rainfall and spell
properties in future
After applying bias correction, each GCM provides us with a set
of bias corrected daily rainfall series for the five sub-basins. As the
 T. Apurv et al. / Journal of Hydrology 527 (2015) 281–291 287

relationship between rainfall spells and flood characteristics is GCMs matches very closely with the observed CDF. For years
based on the area average rainfall, these are obtained from the bias 2010–2020, the CDF obtained by weighted average of GCMs pre-
corrected rainfall time series for the period 2010–2020; one from dicts an increase in the number of spells with high intensity rain-
each GCM. From the average rainfall time series of each GCM, we fall. Fig. 10a projects a clear increase in the number spells with
identify rainfall spells and construct the distribution of spell aver- average rain more than 20 mm for the future decade. The compar-
age rainfall, thus providing five spell average rain CDFs. ison of GCM simulated results for observed and future has been
In order to obtain a unique projection of spell average rain for shown in Fig. 10b. In this figure, by first quarter value we mean
the future, we assign weights to individual GCMs based on their that value for which the cumulative probability is 25% and third
accuracy and convergence (Ghosh and Mujumdar, 2009). The algo- quarter is the value with cumulative probability 75%. The figure
rithm used is as follows: shows that the minimum, first quarter (Q1) and median values
are predicted to decrease in future whereas the Q3 and maximum
1. Weights are assigned to GCMs on the basis of model perfor- values are expected to increase.
mance. The deviation of the bias corrected GCM derived rainfall
from the observed data (duration 1960–2000) is computed in
4.3. Spell length
terms of Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) at 10 equally spaced
points on the CDFs of the two series. The inverse values of
The distributions of spell length simulated by weighted average
RMSE are proportionately used as weights so that the sum of
of GCMs for both observed and future period is shown in Fig. 11a.
weights across all the GCMs is equal to 1.
The results show that the GCMs simulate the spell length in the
2. The weights, thus computed, are used as initial weights
observed period accurately. The percent changes in the distribu-
assigned to the GCMs.
tion of spell length in 2010–2020 with respect to weighted GCM
3. With the weights and the CDFs derived for the downscaled GCM
results for 1960–2000 is presented in Fig. 11b. For the future dec-
predictions, the weighted mean CDF(FXwm) of future monsoon
ade, the distribution changes very little as compared to the
rainfall is computed.
observed period, except for very long flood events. Also, in compar-
X
F Xwm ¼ wk xF XGCMk ison to the observed period, a small increases in Q1, median and Q3
values but a sharp decline in the magnitude of long spells for the
where wk is the weight assigned to the kth GCM, FXGCMk is the future decade is predicted (Fig. 11b).
corresponding CDF.
4. The deviation of the CDFs (future) for all the GCMs is computed
4.4. Flood Characteristics
individually from the weighted mean CDF in terms of RMSE.
5. The average of the inverse of RMSE (derived from steps 1 and 4)
In order to find the characteristics of floods in future we use the
is computed and proportionately (maintaining the same ratio
empirical relationships derived in Section 3.2 between spell aver-
among the weights) used as new weights so that the sum of
age rain and flood characteristics (flood volume and flood peak
new weights across all the GCMs is equal to 1.
stage). The CDF of spell average rain in the future being known,
6. Steps 3–5 are repeated until convergence of the weights is
achieved.

The above methodology generates unique result for future by

Flood Peak of extreme floods (m)

4.5 (a)
assigning more weight to those GCMs which are able to simulate 4
spell average rain more accurately during 1960–2000. 3.5
The details of RMSE, final weights of GCMs and how results 3
have been derived for future are provided in Appendix A. 2.5
Q3-Median
2
Median-Q1
1.5
4. Results and discussions Q1
1
0.5
Using the method described in Section 3.3.3, CDFs for daily rain- 0
fall, spell length and spell average rain have been analysed and dis- 1960-2000 2010-2020
cussed in this section. Years
Change in Flood Peak of Extreme Floods

4.1. Rainfall variation 1.5

(b)
Fig. 9 shows the decade-wise total rainfall in the monsoon sea- 1
son (May–August) for the four decades 1960–2000 from the
observed and GCM predicted and only from the GCMs for the 0.5
(m)

future decade 2010–2020. At all locations, the total summer mon-

soon rainfall has increased slightly during 1990–2000. The GCMs 0
predict a further increase in rainfall for Subansiri and Siang, a slight
decrease for Dihing and no changes for Kulsi and Kameng during -0.5
2010–2020.
-1
Minimum Q1 Median Q3 Maximum
4.2. Spell average rainfall
Fig. 12. (a) Box plots of flood peaks of extreme floods for 1960–2000 and 2010–
After obtaining weights for spell average rain (Table A1), we cal- 2020. The box plot for both the periods have been obtained by weighted average of
spell average rain CDFs of different GCMs and then finding flood peak stage using
culate CDFs for the statistic for both observed (1960–200) and relation in Fig. 5. (b) Changes in values of minimum, first quarter, median, third
future (2010–2020) periods (Fig. 10a). For the period 1960–2000, quarter and maximum values of distribution in Fig. 10(a) from 1960–2000 to 2010–
the CDF of spell average rain obtained by weighted average of 2020 and their corresponding 95% confidence intervals.
288 T. Apurv et al. / Journal of Hydrology 527 (2015) 281–291

Table 5
Flood Volume for extreme

45
40 (a) Uncertainty analysis of change in distribution of flood volume in 2010–2020 with
respect to 1960–2000 of extreme floods.
35
floods (m)

30 Parameter of probability Probability of Probability of

25 distribution increase (%) decrease (%)
20
Minimum 48.1 51.9
15
First quarter (Q1) 42.9 57.1
10
Median 40 60
5
Third quarter (Q3) 60 40
0
Maximum 93.3 6.7
1960-2000 2010-2020
Years
Change in Flood Volume of Extreme

12
10
(b)
slight increase in Q3 values are predicted for flood peak stage with
8
6
respect to weighted GCM distribution for 1960–2000, however sig-
nificant increase in the maximum value of 0.38 m (9.72%) is pre-
Floods (m)

4
2 dicted. Similarly, in Fig. 13, for flood volume, results suggest the
0 following changes; 0.14 m (2.86%) for minimum value,
-2
-4
-6
-8
Minimum Q1 Median
Fig. 13. (a) Box plots of flood volume of extreme floods for 1960–2000 and 2010–
2020. The box plot for both the periods have been obtained by weighted average of
spell average rain CDFs of different GCMs and then finding flood volume using
relation in Fig. 6. (b) Changes in values of minimum, first quarter, median, third
quarter and maximum values of distribution in Fig. 11(a) from 1960–2000 to 2010–
2020 and their corresponding 95% confidence intervals.
and assuming that the relationships derived between flood and
rainfall spell characteristics remain unchanged in future; we com-
pute the CDF of flood characteristics for the future decade. The
magnitudes of flood peaks and flood volumes are calculated using
the regression relations developed between spell average rainfall
and flood properties.
Figs. 12 and 13 show the changes in the distribution of flood
peak stage and flood volume of extreme flood events in the future
decade derived using the predicted changes in rainfall spell
characteristics. Fig. 12 shows that in 2010–2020, a small decrease
in minimum (1.8%), Q1(4.34%) and median(4.24%) values and a
Table 3
Total monsoon rainfall variation (cm).
0.48 m (5.84%) for Q1 value, 0.68 m (5.17%) for median
value, 0.69 m (+3.8%) for Q3 value and 4 m (+10.1%) for maximum
value with respect to GCM simulated values for 1960–2000. These
Q3 Maximum results indicate that the distribution of flood peak stage and flood
volume is likely to get more skewed towards higher magnitudes in
future.
The changes in various parameters of the distribution of flood
properties are derived using the linear model fitted for extreme
floods in Figs. 5 and 6. Also, the 95% confidence intervals of the
changes predicted by the linear model as shown in
Figs. 12b and 13b are derived assuming the error in Figs. 5 and 6
to be normally distributed. Using the error distribution, we have
also calculated the probabilities of whether the changes in param-
eters of probability distributions of extreme flood peak and volume
namely will be positive or negative in future and the results have
been presented in Tables 4 and 5. These tables show that there is
high probability (>80%) that maximum value of the probability dis-
tribution of both extreme flood volume and peak stage will
increase in future. The probability of an increase in Q3 and a
decrease in median value is 55–60% for both flood peak and flood
volume.
Fig. 11b predicts a decrease in the magnitude of very long spells
during 2010–2020 whereas the Q1, median and Q3 values predict
an increase by very small amounts in future. As flood duration of
extreme floods is positively related to length of antecedent spells
(Fig. 7), it can be said that there is likely to be a decrease in the
duration of longer flood waves in future.

1960–1970 1970–1980 1980–1990 1990–2000 2010–2020 5. Conclusion

Dihing 1392.79 1463.05 1603.60 1665.10 1585.55
Kameng 1155.66 1189.79 1124.34 1272.45 1256.35 This study assessed the impact of our changing climate on
Kulsi 1062.45 1053.26 974.89 1246.35 1211.84
floods in Brahmaputra basin using CMIP5 Decadal Predictions at
Subansiri 2618.13 2320.44 2403.65 2467.90 2611.89
Siang 1801.50 1840.01 1832.88 1865.98 2030.90 daily scale. The results of the study suggest no significant changes
in the total monsoon rainfall in the region in the current decade
(2010–2020) for Kulsi, Kameng and Dihing, but a slight increase
in the total season rainfall is predicted for Subansiri and Siang
(Table 3).
We observe that GCMs NBC bias corrected spell average rain
Table 4 and spell length match the observed statistics quite well. For
Uncertainty analysis of change in distribution of flood peak stage in 2010–2020 with 2010–2020, GCMs predict a higher number of spells with average
respect to 1960–2000 of extreme floods.
rain more than 20 mm. The results also indicate that the number
Parameter of probability Probability of Probability of of spells with more intense daily rainfall is expected to increase
distribution increase (%) decrease (%) in the future. The computation of distribution of flood peak and
Minimum 48.8 51.2 flood volume of extreme floods using the empirical relationships
First quarter (Q1) 45.2 54.8 developed between spell average rain and flood peak stage and
Median 43.3 56.7
volume and subsequent uncertainty analysis indicates that there
Third quarter (Q3) 56.7 43.3
Maximum 84.6 15.4 is 55–60% probability of increase in Q3 values, and >80% probabil-
ity of increase in maximum values in the future decade. Also, a
 T. Apurv et al. / Journal of Hydrology 527 (2015) 281–291 289

decrease in magnitude of very long spells is predicted for future more accurate as compared to spell length. Table A1 shows the
which means that the duration of very long flood waves will RMSE calculated at 10 equally spaced points on the spell average
decrease in future as spell length is positively related to flood rain CDF shown in Fig. A1 during 1960–2000 and Table A2 shows
duration. the RMSE for CDFs for spell length during the same period. The
GCM BCC-CSM1-1 and IPSL-CM5A simulate spell average rain
most accurately amongst the GCMs whereas CANCM4 is least
Appendix A. Comparison of observed spell properties with those accurate. However CANCM4 simulates spell length most accu-
simulated by GCMs rately amongst the GCMs. The final weights for GMCs are com-
puted by the methodology explained in Section 3.3.3. The final
Fig. A1 shows the comparison of CDFs of spell average rain weights allotted to GCMs for calculating spell average rain and
simulated by different GCMs with the observed CDF for the period spell length CDF for future have been shown in Tables A1 and
1960–2000 whereas Fig. A2 shows the comparison of CDFs of spell A2 respectively.
length. The CDF for each GCM has been obtained by first calculat- For obtaining the daily rainfall series for each sub-basin, differ-
ing average of bias corrected rainfall of the five sub-basins for that ent weights have been assigned for GCMs based on their perfor-
GCM and then finding spell average rain and spell length. It can be mance in the observed period for each sub-basin. Weights have
seen from Fig. A1 that after applying Nested Bias Correction, the been allotted to GCMs for a particular sub-basin based on the accu-
GCMs simulate both spell length and spell average rain quite racy of the GCM for that sub-basin. The final weights have been
accurately. The simulation of spell average rain by the GCMs is shown in Table A3.

1 1
0.9 0.9
Cumulave Probability

0.8 Cumulave Probability 0.8

0.7 0.7
0.6 0.6
0.5 BCC-CSM1-1 0.5 CanCM4
0.4 Observed 0.4 Observed
0.3 0.3
0.2 0.2
0.1 0.1
0 0
0 10 20 30 40 0 10 20 30 40
Spell Averge Rain (mm) Spell Average Rain (mm)

1
1
0.9
Cumulave Probability

Cumulave Probability

0.9
0.8
0.8
0.7
0.7
0.6 0.6
0.5 0.5 IPSL-CM5A
FGOALs
0.4 0.4 Observed
Observed
0.3 0.3
0.2 0.2
0.1 0.1
0 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 0 10 20 30 40
Spell Average Rain (mm) Spell Average Rain (mm)

1
0.9
0.8
Cumulave Probability

0.7
0.6
0.5 MRI-CGCM3
0.4 Observed
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0 10 20 30 40
Spell Average Rain (mm)

Fig. A1. Comparison of CDFs of spell average rain simulated by different GCMs with the observed CDF for the period 1960–2000.
290 T. Apurv et al. / Journal of Hydrology 527 (2015) 281–291

1
1 0.9

Cumulave Probability
Cumulave Probability
0.9
0.8
0.8
0.7
0.7
0.6
0.6
0.5 BCC-CSM1-1 0.5 CanCM4
0.4 Observed 0.4 Observed
0.3 0.3
0.2 0.2
0.1 0.1
0 0
0 20 40 60 0 20 40 60
Spell Length (days) Spell Length (days)

1 1

Cumulave Probability
Cumulave Probability

0.9 0.9
0.8 0.8
0.7 0.7
0.6 0.6
0.5 FGOALs 0.5 IPSL-CM5A
0.4 Observed 0.4 Observed
0.3 0.3
0.2 0.2
0.1 0.1
0 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 0 20 40 60
Spell Length (days) Spell Length (days)

1
0.9
Cumulave Probability

0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5 MRI-CGCM3
0.4 Observed
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0 20 40 60
Spell Length (days)

Fig. A2. Comparison of CDFs of spell length simulated by different GCMs with the observed CDF for the period 1960–2000.

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