7 Impact of Climate change on Water Resources

KV Rao and R Rejani

Introduction

Earlier studies by Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) showed that mean annual
temperature of India has increased by 0.50C during 1901-2003 whereas the maximum
temperature increased by 0.70C. Climate change and global warming impacts all sectors of
human life and agriculture is particularly vulnerable to it. The annual per capita water
availability in India has decreased from 5177 m3 in 1951 to 1654 m3 in 2007 and it is projected to
decrease to 1341 m3 by 2025 and 1140 m3 by 2050, approaching the water scarce condition.
Climate change refers to the long-term changes in the components of climate such as
temperature, precipitation, evapotranspiration, etc. causing the changes in hydrology of regions
in terms of availability of surface and sub surface water resources. Among these parameters, the
expected changes in precipitation pattern i.e number of rainy days, intensity of rain events,
dryspellsetc may cause direct impact on the availability of water for drinking purpose as well as
for agriculture. This in turn affects the runoff potential availability and irrigation requirement of
crops. The effects could be more when coupled with manmade interventions on land use,
artificial storage structures ( dams etc) and also the local level conservation measures. The
changes in terms of availability of resources may vary spatially as the pattern of change of input
parameters manifests differently across in time and spatial scales.

Methodology

The climate change effects on water resources be estimated at farm scale, watershed scale
and basin/sub basin scale. The effects could be understood through a modeling approach
involving water balance computations. Based on the scale we are interested in, the processes
which would get influenced could be used. The changes in water resource availability at farm
scale could be estimated through a root zone soil water balance which would considers mostly
the runoff from farm areas. On the other hand, at watershed scale/regional scale involves large
tracts of area, routing of the surface flow also need to be considered. There are well established
models which could be used for the purpose based on the data availability for the study regions.
In order to understand the quantum of variability due to climate change, it is necessary to
understand the variability in input parameters. There different Global Circulation Models
available which estimate the variability for different input parameters at different spatial and
temporal scales. These GCMs are physical process driven models and have certain assumptions
in built into them due to which there is variability in the estimates of different parameters such as
precipitation, temperature etc. Hence while understanding the effects of climate change on any

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sector; it is necessary to use more than one model’s data as input to assess the variability range
among the outputs.

Similarly, the water balance models also range from simple ones to a very complicated
one in terms of processes depiction as well as input data intensity. Based on the purpose one
needs to chose a more than one model to reduce the uncertainty in terms of models outputs.
Combining these two with the existing land use as well as storage structures information would
help us to understand the variability in water resources availability across spatial scales, if the
present trend of land use etc remains in static. However, as they can vary greatly over a period of
time due to various factors such as increasing population, favorable policies to bring in
uncultivated areas to cultivated areas, profitability of crops making changes to cropping systems
changes, access to water availability in terms of irrigation etc, it is also necessary to factor in
these processes in a systematic incremental/decremenatal way with reasonable assumptions thus
making informed decisions through modeling processes.

Though examples of such detailed studies have been undertaken in countries like USA,
Austrlaiaetc on river basin scales across country. The notable among them is the study conducted
by CSIRO of Australia covering all major river basins under the project Sustainable Yield
Assessments of catchments. Unsing multi model GCM data and two water balance models
(SIMHYD and Sacremonto), the assessments were made all basins across the country and by
adding the manmade interventions such as increasing the intensity of farm dams.There are very
limited attempts in India with such a large scale effort. One such assessment has been made for
Brahmani river basin considering different GCMs output of temperature and precipitation using a
PRMS model ( Precipitation and Runoff Modellig System).

Impact of climate change on runoff potential

Climate change impacts on runoff potential was carried out using SWAT model and
ENSEMBLE data in different domain districts of AICRPDA Centres. In addition to this, SCS-
CN coupled with GIS could be utilized for estimating runoff potential. Estimation of runoff
potential is very important for planning in-situ soil and water conservation practices and
identification of suitable locations for water harvesting structures. At Bastar plateau zone of
Chhattisgarh, the rainfall ranges from 1200 to 1600 mm. During 63 years (1951-2013), the mean
rainfall in blocks under low rainfall as well as high rainfall category has increased and runoff
increased over the years due to high intensity rainfall. Ensemble data of CMIP5 showed a
decreasing trend of rainfall in this region and the runoff estimated using SWAT model also
showed a decreasing trend during 2020's, 2050's and 2080's under different emission scenarios.
But the runoff potential available at present itself is sufficient for harvesting and supplemental
irrigation in Bastar plateau. In the domain districts of Vijayapura Centre, under low emission
scenario, <1% increase in runoff, medium emission scenario (RCP 4.5) around 2% increase in
runoff and under high emission scenario around 3.7% increase in runoff is expected by the end
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of the century. The runoff potential estimated under different emission scenarios at Vijayapura
also showed more potential for rainwater harvesting in future.

Impact of climate change on irrigation requirement of crops

The effective rainfall and irrigation requirement of crops under future climate scenarios
was estimated using IMD data and CMIP 5 ENSEMBLE data at ICAR-CRIDA. The daily
rainfall ENSEMBLE data pertaining to 2020's (2010 to 2039), 2050's (2040 to 2069) and 2080's
(2070 to 2099) for three emission scenarios namely, RCP 2.6 (low), RCP 4.5 (medium), RCP 6.0
(high) and RCP 8.5 (very high) was used. The FAO Penman-Monteith method has been
recommended as a sole standard method for ETo calculation (Allen et al., 1998). However, the
desired solar radiation data for the selected area for future climate scenarios is not available and
hence the Hargreaves and Samani (1985) method was used for estimating ETo. This method
requires extra terrestrial radiation, minimum temperature, maximum temperature and latitude of
the area. The irrigation requirement of rabi crops at Vijayapurawas predicted to increase
considerably whereas in kharif crops, the increase in irrigation requirement is negligible under
low, medium and high emission scenarios (Table 1).

At Vijayapura, the rainfall is predicted to increase from 590 mm during base line period
to 611, 646 and 677 mm during 2020's, 2050's and 2080's under RCP 4.5, medium emission
scenario. i.e., the rainfall would increase by 3.5, 9.5 and 14.7% respectively. Under high
emission scenario (RCP 8.5), it is predicted as 617, 674 and 742 mm. i.e., the rainfall would
increase by 4.5, 14.2 and 25.7% respectively. Compared to baseline period, the mean annual
rainfall during RCP 2.6 would increase from 590 mm to 622, 645 and 646 mm and under RCP
6.0, the mean annual rainfall would increase from 590 mm to 602, 629 and 673 mm during
2020's, 2050's and 2080's.

At Vijayapura, the maximum temperature is predicted to increase by 0.8, 1.6, 2.0 0C under
RCP 4.5 and 0.9, 2.0, 3.60C under RCP 8.5. The minimum temperature is also predicted to
increase by 1.0, 1.8, 2.30C under RCP 4.5 and 1.1, 2.5, 4.20C under RCP 8.5 respectively.
Correspondingly, the evapo-transpiration values (ET0) estimated showed an increasing trend
from 1851 to 1877, 1900 and 1916 mm under RCP 4.5 and 1851 to 1876 , 1912 and 1958 mm
under RCP 8.5. Similarly, the mean annual evapotranspiration would increase from 1851 to
1875, 1886 and 1896 mm respectively under RCP 2.6 and 1851 to 1879, 1897 and 1912 mm
respectively under RCP 6.0.

Relatively higher temperatures predicted during future scenarios resulted in higher

evapotranspiration. Eventhough higher mean annual rainfall was predicted, its variation during
kharif season was less (CV=35 to 36%) compared to October to February and March to May
(CV=70 to 77%). Hence, irrigation requirement of kharifcrops predicted under changing climatic
scenarios are not rising considerably whereas rabi and summer crops are showing increasing

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trend. Main crops cultivated includes sunflower, pearl millet, pigeon pea, maize, chick pea, green
gram, groundnut, onion, tomato and chilli. Results indicated that climate change may not have
much impact on sustainability of prevailing cropping system as the crop seasonal water
requirement of kharif crops are concerned. Based on water requirement under various climate
change scenarios, appropriate strategies to cope up the climate change impact on rabi crops
needs to be planned. Rainwater harvesting and artificial groundwater recharge need to be made
mandatory in the study area for increasing the groundwater recharge and water availability. It is
concluded that in order to ensure long-term and sustainable groundwater utilization in the region,
proper estimation of crop water requirement and optimal water management are needed.

Considerable spatial variation in the Irrigation requirement of kharif and rabi crops are noted at
Akola (1951-2013) (Fig.1)

Fig.1. Spatial variation in the Irrigation requirement of Rabi sorghum and Cotton (1951-2013) at
Akola

Efforts were made under NATCOM to generate the information across country for
different river basins using SWAT model and PRECIS (Regional Climate model ) data set. FAO
Water balance models were used to estimate the changes irrigation demands under climate
change scenarios for different crops such as Rice and wheat in Indo Gangetic belt covering
Punjab, Haryana and Up states.

NATCOM study report detailsare given below

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 All the river basins of the Indian regions have been modelled using the hydrologic model
SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) and incorporating the total basin area of each river
system (including the one outside Indian boundary).The model requires information on terrain,
soil profile and landuse of the basin area as input which have been obtained from the global
sources. These three entities have been assumed to be static for future as well. The other
information that is essential for the analysis is the weather conditions of the present and future.
The data on weather conditions have been provided by the IITM Pune as the output of a regional
climate model (RCM-PRECIS) at daily interval at a resolution of about 50 km. Simulated
climate outputs from PRECIS regional climate model for present (1961–1990, BL) near term
(2021-2050, MC) and long term (2071-2098, EC) for A1B IPCC SRES socio-economic scenario
have been used. The study determines the present water availability in space and time without
incorporating any man made changes like dams, diversions, etc. The same framework is then
used to predict the impact of climate change on the water resources with the assumption that the
land use shall not change over time. A total of 90 years of simulation have been conducted; 30
years each belonging to IPCC SRES A1B baseline (BL), near term or mid-century (MC) and
long term or end-century (EC) climate scenarios. While modelling, each river basin in the region
has been further subdivided into reasonable sized sub-basins so as to account for spatial
variability of inputs under the baseline and GHG scenarios.

Data Used

Spatial data used for the study and their source include:
• Digital Elevation Model: SRTM, of 90 m resolution
• Drainage Network – Hydroshed
• Soil maps and associated soil characteristics (source: FAO Global soil)
• Land use (source: Global landuse)

The Meteorological data pertaining to the river basins are required for modelling the basins.
These include daily rainfall, maximum and minimum temperature, solar radiation, relative
humidity and wind speed. The following weather data were available.

• PRECIS Regional Climate Model outputs for Baseline (1961–1990, BL), near term
(2021-2050, MC) and long term or end-century (2071-2098, EC) for A1B IPCC
SRES scenario (Q14 QUMP ensemble)

Effect of climate change on the water balance components has been analysed for each basin.
The spatial distribution of water yield, evapotranspiration and sediment yield along with the
precipitation has been analysed for the BL, MC and EC scenarios.

• The long term variation in percentage in these basic water balance elements for
various regions has been shown in Figures. Figure 2 presents the percentage change

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 in major components of water balance (precipitation, water yield and
evapotransiration) from baseline to mid-century and end-century respectively.
Positive change indicates decrease from baseline and negative change indicates
increase from baseline.
• Majority of the river systems show increase in the precipitation at the basin level.
Only Brahmaputra, Cauvery and Pennar show marginal decrease in precipitation
under MC scenario. The basins with reduction in precipitation show associated
decrease in water yield. The decrease in water yield in Pennar basin is more
pronounced which may be on account of changes in the distribution of precipitation
under MC. The situation under EC improves wherein all the river systems exhibit
increase in precipitation. There is also an associated increase in water yield for all the
river systems under EC. The change in evapotranspiration (ET) under the MC
scenario exhibit appreciable increase (close to 10 %) in ET for Brahmputra, Indus and
Luni river basins. All other systems show marginal increase or decrease. Maximum
decrease is for Mahi river (4.1 %). This situation changes drastically under EC for
which the magnitude of change increases drastically. For majority of the river
systems the ET has increased by more than 40%. The only two river basins which
show some decrease in ET under EC scenario are Cauvery and Krishna rivers. The
major reason for such an increase in ET is on two accounts, one is the increase in the
temperature and the second one is the increase in precipitation which enhances the
opportunity of ET.
• One may observe that the change in precipitation is highly variable with most of the
river basins This is not so only in big basins such as Ganga but also for smaller basins
such as Cauvery and Pennar. It may also be observed from the lower left hand box in
Figure 3 that the average change in precipitation shown through the red cross bar
reflecting increase in precipitation for majority of the river basins although there are
few sub-basins within specific river basin that may be showing decrease in
precipitation under MC scenario. The situation is further improved when we see the
EC scenario for which there is increase in the average basin precipitation as compared
to BL scenario. However even in this scenario many river systems such as Ganga,
Indus, Luni, Godavari, Krishna etc,.have sub-basins which show decrease in
precipitation.
• The implications of changes in precipitation have been quantified in the form of
resulting water yields through the SWAT modelling. The response of water yield is
dependent on combination of factors such as terrain, landuse, soil type and weather
conditions. Despite the increase in precipitation from MC to EC scenario the Krishna
river system is showing reduction in the water yield. This can be on account of higher
ET (because of increased temperatures). It may also be observed that in the case of
Cauvery river system although there is an improvement in the average water yield
from MC to EC scenario yet there are some sub-basins that show reduction in water

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 yield (also reflected in the bar chart – maximum reduction increasing from about 30%
(MC) to more than 50% (EC).

Fig.2. Change in water balance components towards 2030s (MC) and 2080s (EC) with respect
to 1970s (BL)

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Fig.3. Change in Water Yield (water availability) towards 2030s (MC) and 2080s (EC) with
respect to 1970s (BL)

Impact Assessment –Droughts

There is an increase in the moderate drought development (Scale 1) for Krishna,

Narmada, Pennar, Cauvery and Brahmini basins which have either predicted decrease in
precipitation or have enhanced level of evapotranspiration for the MC scenario. It is also evident
from the depiction that the moderate to extreme drought severity (Scale2) has been pronounced
for the Baitarni, Sabarmati, Mahi and Ganga river systems where the increase is ranging between
5 to 20% for many areas despite the overall increase in precipitation.

The situation of moderate drought (Scale 1) is expected to improve under EC scenario for
almost all the river systems but for Tapi basin which show about 5% increase in drought weeks.
However, the situation for moderate to extreme droughts (Scale 2) does not appreciably improve
much under EC scenario despite the increase in precipitation. However, there is some
improvement in Ganga, Godavari and Cauvery.

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 Conclusions

A comprehensive evaluation of the possible climate change impacts on the

waterresources involves the understanding of the uncertainty of climate change predictions by
different GCMs datasets as well as the water balance models. Inclusion of man made
interventions/changes in land use , increase in number of dams etc would further increase the
complexity of the problem.

References

1. Allen RG, Pereira LS, Raes D and Smith, M. 1998. Crop evapotranspiration- Guidelines for
computing crop water requirements, FAO Irrigation and drainage paper 56. FAO, Rome, 300(9):
D05109.
2. Hargreaves GH and Samani ZA. 1985. Reference crop evapotranspiration from temperature.
Applied Engineering in Agriculture, 1(2): 96-99.
3. Rejani R, Rao KV, Shirahatti MS, Surakod VS, Yogitha P, Chary GR, Gopinath KA, Osman
M, Sammi Reddy K and Srinivasa Rao Ch. 2016. Irrigation requirement of crops under changing
climatic scenarios in a semi-arid region of Northern Karnataka. Indian J. Dryland Agric. Res. &
Dev. 31(2): 51-60.

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 Table 1. Mean annual rainfall, ET0 and irrigation requirement of different crops under changing climatic scenarios

2020 (% increase/decrease) 2050 (% increase/decrease) 2080 (% increase/decrease)

Base RCP RCP RCP RCP RCP RCP RCP RCP RCP RCP RCP RCP
line 2.6 4.5 6.0 8.5 2.6 4.5 6.0 8.5 2.6 4.5 6.0 8.5
Mean annual ET0 (mm) 1851 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.4 1.9 2.7 2.5 3.3 2.4 3.6 3.3 5.8
Mean annual rainfall
(mm) 590 5.4 3.6 2.0 4.6 9.3 9.5 6.6 14.4 9.5 14.7 14.1 25.8
Crops                        
Sunflower_kharif 188 0.5 1.1 2.1 1.6 1.1 1.6 2.1 2.7 2.1 2.1 2.7 4.8
Sunflower_rabi 304 1.6 1.3 1.6 1.3 2.3 3.3 3.0 3.6 2.3 4.3 3.9 6.6
Pearl millet_kharif 267 1.1 1.5 2.2 1.9 1.9 2.6 3.7 3.7 3.0 3.4 4.1 6.4
Sorghum_rabi 434 1.2 1.4 1.2 0.9 1.6 3.0 2.1 2.5 2.1 3.5 2.5 4.4
Piegon pea 253 0.8 1.2 2.0 1.6 1.2 2.0 2.4 2.8 2.4 2.4 2.8 4.7
Maize_ kharif 363 -0.6 0.3 0.8 0.3 -0.3 0.6 1.1 0.6 0.8 1.1 0.6 2.2
Maize_ rabi 667 1.8 1.6 1.8 1.8 2.4 3.1 2.7 4.0 2.7 4.0 3.6 6.7
Chick pea 245 1.2 1.6 1.2 0.8 2.0 3.3 2.4 2.9 2.4 3.7 2.9 5.3
Onion kharif 513 -0.4 0.2 0.6 0.2 0.0 0.8 1.0 0.6 1.0 1.2 0.8 2.1
Onion rabi 577 1.0 1.2 1.2 0.9 1.6 2.9 2.3 2.6 2.1 3.5 2.8 4.9
Tomato kharif 427 -0.5 0.2 0.5 0.2 -0.2 0.7 0.9 0.5 0.7 0.9 0.5 1.9
Tomato rabi 548 1.6 1.6 1.6 1.3 2.2 3.5 2.7 3.5 2.4 4.2 3.6 6.0
Tomato summer 701 2.4 2.3 2.6 2.6 3.0 3.7 4.0 5.3 3.6 4.7 5.4 8.1
Chilli_ kharif 230 -0.9 0.0 0.4 0.0 -0.4 0.4 0.9 0.4 0.9 0.9 0.4 1.7
Chilli_ rabi 272 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.1 1.8 3.3 2.6 2.9 2.6 4.0 2.9 5.1
Chilli_ summer 449 1.8 1.6 1.8 1.8 2.2 3.1 2.7 4.0 2.7 4.0 3.8 6.9
Green gram_kharif 255 0.8 1.6 2.0 1.6 1.2 2.0 2.4 2.4 2.4 2.4 2.7 4.7
Green gram_rabi 306 1.6 1.6 1.6 1.3 2.3 3.6 2.6 3.3 2.6 4.2 3.3 5.6
Ground nut 334 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.4 1.9 2.7 2.5 3.3 2.4 3.6 3.3 5.8

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