Theoretical and Applied Climatology

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-020-03261-w

ORIGINAL PAPER

Future water availability from the western Karakoram

under representative concentration pathways as simulated
by CORDEX South Asia
Eshrat Fatima 1 & Mujtaba Hassan 1 & Shabeh ul Hasson 1,2 & Bashir Ahmad 3 & Syeda Saleha Fatim Ali 1

Received: 23 August 2019 / Accepted: 4 May 2020

# Springer-Verlag GmbH Austria, part of Springer Nature 2020

Abstract
Employing a fully distributed hydrological model of SPHY (spatial processes in hydrology), we assessed the future water
availability from a highly glacierized basin of Hunza in the western Karakoram under plausible climates as projected by the
representative concentration pathways (RCPs). We successfully calibrate and validate the SPHY model for the periods 1994–
1997 and 1997–2000 respectively using three high-altitude representative meteorological stations from the Water and Power
Development Authority (WAPDA), Pakistan. Then, we run the model for near- (2007–2036), mid- (2037–2066), and far-future
(2067–2096) climate projections under three different RCP scenario, i.e., RCP2.6, RCP4.5, and RCP8.5. Each scenario includes
four high-resolution (~ 50 km) climate experiments that are obtained from dynamically downscaling the Coupled Model Inter-
comparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) experiments under the framework of the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling
Experiments (CORDEX) for South Asia. The SPHY model projects a substantial increase in the ensemble mean discharges
throughout the 21st century under all RCP scenarios. Such an increase is dominated by the enhanced glacier melt contribution
under the high warming scenario of RCP8.5. Besides featuring a declining trend, snowmelt contribution will also remain higher
than that of the historical period throughout the 21st century and under all RCPs. Our flow duration curve analysis suggests that
high and median flows are projected to increase while low flows are projected to decrease in the future. These findings provide
invaluable insights into the uncertainty spectrum of the water availability from the western Karakoram across envisaged future
climates, which will be supportive in better managing the downstream water resources.

1 Introduction HKH mountains ensure the well-being of more than a

Adverse impacts of climate change have been observed
on both global and local scales (Hasson et al. 2013).
These impacts are more prominent for the hydrological
cycle of the high latitude regions, particularly the
cryosphere-rich Hindukush-Karakoram-Himalaya (HKH)
mountains. Highly variable water supplies from these
* Mujtaba Hassan
mujtaba@grel.ist.edu.pk
1
Department of Space Science, Institute of Space Technology,
Islamabad 44000, Pakistan
2
Institute of Geography, Centre for Earth System Research and
Sustainability (CEN), University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
3
Climate, Energy and Water Research Institute (CEWRI), National
Agricultural Research Center (NARC), Islamabad, Pakistan
billion people living downstream.
The upper Indus basin (UIB) is one of the
cryosphere-rich HKH basins that feature particular im-
portance due to its transboundary extent shared by
China, India, Afghanistan, and Pakistan and due to the
dependency of approximately 215 million humans on its
meltwaters that originate from snowfields and glaciers
(ICIMOD 2017). Sub-catchments of the UIB (Hunza,
Shyok, and Shigar) have large glacierized proportions
(Archer 2003). There is a high positive correlation be-
tween summer runoff and summer temperatures mea-
sured at valley bottom stations (e.g., Archer 2003;
Fowler and Archer 2006). In line with global climate
change projections, the temperatures in the UIB will rise
and potentially impact the glacier melt and future water
availability (e.g., Rees and Collins 2005; Briscoe and
Qamar 2007). However, from glaciological observations,
the evidence of climate change in the UIB is not entire-
ly clear (Archer et al. 2010).

In the western Karakoram, the Hunza basin is a high-
altitude sub-catchment of the UIB, featuring highly concen-
trated cryosphere that is vulnerable to prevailing climatic
changes. Hunza basin contributes around 13% (328 m3 s−1)
to the UIB, which supplies around half of the surface water
availability in Pakistan (Hasson et al. 2017). Hence, the as-
sessment of future water availability from the Hunza basin is
of paramount importance for the agrarian economy of
Pakistan and for power generation downstream at the
country’s largest Tarbela dam.
A number of earlier studies have assessed future water
availability from the western Karakoram. For instance,
Akhtar et al. (2009) have applied the semi-distributed HBV
model and then drove it with the SRES A2 scenario, reporting
a consistent increase in discharge in the future. Tahir et al.
(2011) used MODIS snow cover products integrated with
the snowmelt runoff model (SRM) to simulate the daily dis-
charges for climate change impact in the Hunza River basin.
Recently, Hayat et al. (2019) simulated current and future
river-flows in the Karakoram and Himalayan regions of
Pakistan using a snowmelt runoff model under different rep-
resentative concentration pathway (RCP) scenarios. They
showed that the annual flow in the Hunza basin will increases
from 14 to 90% by the mid and late 21st century under all
RCP scenarios. These studies have either adopted semi-
distributed hydrological models or they used future projec-
tions of coarse resolution GCMs for impact assessment on
water resources in the high-altitude glacierized catchments
(e.g., Bocchiola et al. 2011; Immerzeel et al. 2012b; Ragettli
et al. 2013; Lutz et al. 2016; Garee et al. 2017). These very
simple hydrological models simulate complex dynamics of
the rich cryosphere using only empirical relationships.
Furthermore, a semi-distributed snowmelt runoff model re-
quires snow cover as an input, and its hypothetical extent
assumed for the future can be inconsistent with the transient
climates simulated by the climate models. Moreover, Hasson
et al. (2018) and Hasson and Böhner (2019) have specifically
shown a larger spread and disagreement among the interpo-
lated as well as remote-sensing-derived gridded observational
datasets over the upper Indus basin that encompasses Hunza.
Hence, bias correction of the coarse resolution of Coupled
Model Inter-comparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5)-based
RCP scenarios against these gridded observations is not rep-
resentative of the topo-climate of the HKH and can introduce
further uncertainties in the climate change projections and,
subsequently, in the future water availability assessment.
Against this background, we assess the future water availabil-
ity from the highly glacierized Hunza basin up to the Dainyor
Bridge within the western Karakoram using a sophisticated spa-
tially distributed cryospheric-hydrological model called as
Spatial Processes in HYdrology (SPHY). SPHY was coupled
with state-of-the-art high-resolution dynamically downscaled fu-
ture climates within the framework of the coordinated regional
E. Fatima et al.
climate downscaling experiments (CORDEX) for South Asia.
The employed future climates are projected by the multiple re-
gional climate models (RCMs) that are driven by the CMIP5
experiments under a variety of RCP scenarios. In addition to
projecting the mean ensemble changes in the water availability
from the western Karakoram, we quantify the associated uncer-
tainty spectrum resulted from envisaging multiple RCP scenari-
os, and their multi-model simulations. The study yields important
knowledge on the future of the meltwater supplies from the west-
ern Karakoram, and its associated uncertainties for overall effi-
cient management of water resources, adaptation to the alternate
solution of water security, and revisiting strategies for sustained
agriculture production and power generation downstream.
2 Hunza basin, western Karakoram
Covering an area of 13,728 km2, the study basin of Hunza lies
within the high mountains of the western Karakoram range
between 35.9° and 37° North and 74° and 75.8° East (Fig. 1).
The basin features complex topography, narrow gorges, deep
valleys, and extreme topographic relief that ranges between
1420 and 7822 m above mean sea level. According to the
hydrological regime classification, Hunza is mainly a
glacier-fed basin (Hasson et al. 2017). According to Mölg
et al. (2018), around 31% of the basin area is under the per-
manent ice cover and glaciers, which are mostly in a stable
state since 1976 (Rankl et al. 2014). On the other hand, the
mean seasonal snow cover ranges between 17 and 83% of the
basin area, which is increasing during spring and summer but
decreasing during winter and autumn (Hasson et al. 2014b).
These frozen freshwater resources within the arid climate
of the western Karakoram are predominantly nourished by the
year-round moisture accompanied by the western distur-
bances although the south Asian summer monsoon also brings
moisture to the basin (Lau and Yang 1997; Houze et al. 2011;
Hasson et al. 2014a, b; Hasson 2016a; De Kok et al. 2018;
Wijngaard et al. 2017; Bonekamp et al. 2019). The western
disturbances are extratropical cyclones, which originated over
the Caspian Sea, Black Sea, and the Mediterranean Sea, and
are transported to the basin through the southern flank of the
Atlantic and Mediterranean storm track (Hasson 2016a;
Hasson and Böhner 2019). These disturbances are associated
with extreme precipitation events over northern India and
Pakistan during the winter season (Hasson et al. 2016; Hunt
et al. 2018). Whereas, the south Asian summer monsoon cur-
rents are the saturated southerly and southeasterly flow that
originates from the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea, re-
spectively. As far as such flow propagates north and
northwestward, it becomes weaker and the associated
precipitation amounts decrease (Hasson 2016a; Hasson
et al. 2016; Hassan et al. 2019).
Future water availability from the western Karakoram under representative concentration pathways as...
Fig. 1 The study basin of Hunza, western Karakoram, Pakistan
Within Hunza, precipitation peaks around March/April un-
der the westerly precipitation regime that is associated with
the western disturbances followed by in August/September
under the monsoonal precipitation regime (Hasson and
Böhner 2019). Precipitation is the lowest at the highest station
of Khunjerab while it is the highest at the lowest station of
Naltar (Hasson et al. 2014b, 2017). The average annual tem-
perature of the basin is observed to be around 13 °C (2 to 23
°C) whereas February is the coldest and July is the hottest
month over the period of 1994–2000 (Fig. 2). The mean an-
nual discharge is about 328 m3 s−1, which is accumulated
through the 232-kilometer-long main trunk of the Hunza
River and its 14 small-to-medium tributaries, namely,
Dainyor, Khunjrab, Verjerab, Chupurson, Misgar,
Khudaabad, Khyber, Shimshal, Hisper, Hoper, Hassanabad,
Rakaposhi, Chalt, and Naltar. The geophysical characteristics
of the study basin are further given in Table 1.
The climate of the Hunza features a unique pattern of
change. Analyzing trends from high-altitude (1995–2012)
and valley bottom (1961–2012) station observations, Hasson
et al. (2017) have reported that temperatures are increasing
during spring but decreasing during the summer season, par-
ticularly during the monsoon months of July and September,
which constitute the main glacier melt period. Subsequently,
discharge during early melt season is increasing due to en-
hanced snowmelt while it is decreasing in response to summer
cooling and associated weakening of snow/glacier melt
(Hasson 2016b; Hasson et al. 2017).
3 Materials and methods
3.1 SPHY model
SPHY is a raster-based, fully distributive, high-resolution
cryosphere hydrological model, which operates on varying
spatial resolutions and on a daily temporal scale (Terink
et al. 2015). The SPHY model runs with daily time steps at
250 m2 spatial resolution. SPHY has already been applied in
high-altitude glacierized Asian river basins for climate change
impact assessment on water resources (Immerzeel et al.
2012a; Lutz et al. 2012, 2014, 2016).
Depending on the fractional land cover features, the model
calculates the storages and fluxes and their change at the sub-
grid scale. The SPHY is a water balance model and divides the
generated runoff further into the surface flow, sub-surface
 E. Fatima et al.

Fig. 2 Mean intra-annual distri- 30 4

Average of Khunjreb(Precip)
bution of temperatures and pre- Average of Naltar(Precip)
20
cipitation from three high-altitude Average of Ziarat(Precip)
3

Precipitaon (mm)
10

Temperature (°C)
meteorological stations, i.e.,
Khunjreb, Ziarat, and Naltar
0
2
-10
Khunjreb(T_MAX)
Khunjreb(T_MIN)
-20 Ziarat(T_MIN) 1
Ziarat(T_MAX)
-30 Naltar(T_MAX)
Naltar(T_MIN)
-40 0

Feb

Sep
Jan

Nov
Dec
Mar
Apr
May

Aug

Oct
Jun
Jul
Jan
Feb

Sep

Dec
Apr

Nov
Mar

May

Aug
Jul

Oct
Jun
Month Month

flow, and base flow based on infiltration and percolation and distribution of both is defined by a calibrated glacier melt runoff
routes them to the basin outlet. The model provides extensive factor ranging from 0 to 1 (Terink et al. 2015). In SPHY, the
output parameters both as times series and on a spatial scale. SnowSlide routine is used to simulate the gravitational snow trans-
The total flow (QTOT) depends on contribution from the main port between grid cells (Bernhardt and Schulz 2010). An
four hydrological components, such as glacier melt (QGM), elevation-dependent potential sublimation function is used to esti-
snowmelt (QSM), rain runoff (QRR), and base flow (QBF). mate now sublimation processes (Lutz et al. 2016).
The temperature index method also known as the degree-day In addition to accumulation and melt within the snow stor-
model is used to simulate the glacier and snowmelt (Hock 2003). age, refreezing and rainwater are also simulated using the
The temperature index method is a most common melt modeling degree-day modeling approach (Lutz et al. 2016). Rainfall-
approach due to the availability of temperature data, forecasting runoff includes flow from soil water storage and surface run-
possibilities and easy interpolation of air temperature, good model off from rainfall. Subsoil- and topsoil-simulated soil water
performance, and simplicity in computation (Hock 2003). On the processes consist of percolation, infiltration, evapotranspira-
basis of the threshold for elevation and terrain slope, a differenti- tion, capillary rise, and surface runoff. Soil water processes are
ation is made between debris-free and debris-cover glaciers (Paul simulated for a topsoil and subsoil layer, and processes simu-
et al. 2004). The daily melt from debris-free glacier is calculated lated include evapotranspiration, infiltration, percolation, cap-
using a calibrated degree-day factor and fraction of debris-free illary rise, surface runoff, and lateral flow. Baseflow is re-
glacier within the fractional glacier cover of a grid cell (Terink leased from the groundwater storage (Lutz et al. 2016). The
et al. 2015). In a similar way, the daily melt from debris-covered digital elevation model (DEM) is used for downstream routing
glacier is calculated with a different degree-day factor (Terink et al. for each of the four runoff processes. Further details of the
2015). Total glacier melt is calculated by adding debris-free and SPHY model are described in the published reference litera-
debris-covered glacier types and by multiplying with fractional ture of Terink et al. (2015).
glacier cover (Terink et al. 2015). A fraction of the glacier melt
in SPHY percolates from soil layers and recharges the groundwa- 3.2 Data used
ter. The remaining fraction of glacier melt runs off and the
As input, SPHY requires dynamic as well as static data
(Terink et al. 2015). The dynamic data include temperature,
Table 1 Geophysical characteristics of the Hunza Basin, western precipitation, and evapotranspiration. The static data consist
Karakoram of the digital elevation model, land use, soil characteristics,
and glacier cover.
Basin characteristics Units Value
Observed meteorological and hydrological data used to
Basin drainage area km2 13,728 calibrate and validate the SPHY Model were obtained from
% of basin area under glacier cover % 31 the Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA),
Mean elevation of the basin m 4472 Pakistan. Meteorological observations were available for the
% of basin area above 5000 m % 35.8 period 1994–2004. The meteorological observations include
Automated weather stations - Naltar/Ziarat/Khunjrab the daily minimum temperature, daily maximum temperature,
Elevation of the meteorological stations m 2898/3669/4440 and precipitation from three automated weather stations,
Discharge gauging station - Dainyor Bridge namely, Naltar, Ziarat, and Khunjerab, at the elevations of
Gauge latitude o/longitude o/elevation degree 35.92o/74.37o/1370 o 2898, 3669, and 4440 meters above sea level, respectively
Mean annual discharge m3s−1 328 (Fig. 1 and Table 2). These are high-quality observations as
reported by Hasson et al. (2014b) and Hasson et al. (2017),
Future water availability from the western Karakoram under representative concentration pathways as...
Table 2 List of hydro-meteorological stations within the Hunza River basin used for calibration and validation of the SPHY model
S. no. Station name Period from Period to Department
Meteorological stations
1. Naltar 1994 2000 WAPDA
2. Ziarat 1994 2000 WAPDA
3. Khunjreb 1994 2000 WAPDA
Discharge Station
1. Dainyor Bridge 1994 2000 WAPDA
featuring no inhomogeneity within the analysis period (1994–
2000). Daily meteorological data for temperature and precip-
itation from 1994 to 2004 was used to adjust the biases in the
future climate data. There is only one long-term streamflow
gauging station at the Dainyor Bridge, which is being operated
by the WAPDA since 1966. This long-term gauging site has
been considered as the basin outlet, and the observed dis-
charges at the Dainyor Bridge site have been collected for
the baseline period from the WAPDA. As compared with
meteorological data availability (1994–2004), the streamflow
observations were only available for a shorter period of 1994–
2000, owing to which SPHY model calibration and validation
were restricted to the 1994–2000 period.
For the calculation of reference evapotranspiration, the
Penman-Monteith equation (Allen et al. 1998) presents a good
physical underlying theory. However, its major limitation is
the high data demand for energy-based methods (Terink et al.
2015). For this reason, SPHY uses a modified Hargreaves
equation of Hargreaves and Samani (1985) for evapotranspi-
ration which is based on temperature only (Terink et al. 2015).
The DEM was extracted from the global Shuttle Radar
Topography Mission (SRTM) at 90-m resolution. Land-use
characteristics at 300-m fine resolution were obtained from the
GlobCover project. GlobCover project has produced a global
land cover map using MEdium Resolution Imaging
Spectrometer (MERIS) time series, and the data obtained for
the GlobCover project provides great coverage of the world
(Defourny et al. 2006). The major characteristics of the
GlobCover project includes planning for data acquisition at high
temporal resolution with 15 spectral bands, land/seas classifica-
tion using MERIS measurement rather than static land/sea mask;
handling/processing large data set; and combining the spatial
consistency of the classes’ delineation acquired from multispec-
tral composites (Defourny et al. 2006). The pre-processing of the
GlobCover system consists of geometric correction, cloud
screening, and atmospheric correction. MERIS level 3 mosaic
classification includes spectral/temporal classification, labeling,
and validation (Defourny et al. 2006). GlobCover project builds
global MERIS data and provides substantial improvement of the
geometric accuracy of the MERIS time series (Defourny et al.
2006). The DEM and land-use data were resampled to 250 m2
spatial resolution of SHPY.
Latitude (degrees) Longitude (degrees) Height (meters)
36.16 74.18 2898
36.83 74.27 3669
36.84 75.41 4440
35.92 74.37 2000
A global 3D soil information system at 1-km resolution
(SoilGrids1km), at six standard depths, provides complete-
globally best possible current estimate of soil classes and prop-
erties (Hengl et al. 2014). SoilGrid1km provides a global soil
map with improved accuracy and high resolution. However, it
does not include the hydraulic properties of the soil required for
hydrological modeling (De Boer 2016). A high-resolution soil
map of hydraulic properties (HiHydroSoil) data derived from
SoilGrid1km was used in SPHY (De Boer 2016). The
Harmonized World Soil Database (HWSD) was used to fill the
missing data in the SoilGrids1km (De Boer 2016). The
pedotransfer functions are predictive functions of certain proper-
ties of the soil and translate the raw soil data into more useful
information (Odeh and McBratney 2005). As described by
Mualem Van Genuchten (MVG) model, the soil properties are
converted into soil hydraulic functions using the PTFs (De Boer
2016). The development of PTFs includes parametric predictions
to characterize the retention of soil moisture, the prediction at
various potential matric for soil water retention, and hydraulic
conductivity curve (Tóth et al. 2015). The Randolph Glacier
Inventory version 4 (Pfeffer et al. 2014) is used to extract the
glacier outline in the pre-processing of SPHY for Hunza basin.
To assess future water availability from the western
Karakoram, the model requires future climate conditions.
These future climate datasets are available from a variety of
RCP scenarios, such as RCP2.6, RCP4.5, and RCP8.5. These
RCP experiments are simulated either by the global circula-
tion models (GCMs) participating in the CMIP5 or at a rela-
tively high planar resolution of ~ 50 km, by the RCMs under
the CORDEX framework for the South Asia domain. The
CORDEX South Asia experiments have been obtained from
dynamically downscaled CMIP5 experiments with a suite of
RCMs—an initiative by the World Climate Research
Programme (WCRP).
We have obtained daily data for the historical (1994–2004)
and future climates (2007–2096) from the CORDEX South
Asia experiments for all RCPs (2.6/4.5/8.5). Since each RCP
scenario was simulated by different GCM-RCM combina-
tions, we have obtained only those CORDEX experiments
that simulate all RCPs and with the same GCM-RCM combi-
nations, for consistency purposes. At least four GCM-RCM
combinations that simulate all RCPs under the CORDEX
 E. Fatima et al.

South Asia framework were available, which were obtained simulated data to be larger or smaller than the observed data
from the Earth System Grid Federation hosted by the German (Eq. (3)) whereas the RMSE provides residual between ob-
Climate Computing Centre (ESGF-DKRZ 2014) index node. served and simulated discharges and the best values of both
The details of each RCM and its driving GCM used in this are zero (Eq. (4)).
study are given in Table 3.
∑ni¼1 ðQobsi −Qsimi Þ2
NSE ¼ 1− ð1Þ
∑ni¼1 ðQobsi −Qobs Þ2
3.3 Calibration and validation 8 92
>
> >
>
>
< >
=
Figure 3 depicts the methodology of the study. The ∑ni¼1 ðQobsi −Qobs ÞðQobsi −Qobs Þ
R2 ¼ h i0:5  n 0:5 ð2Þ
cryospheric-hydrological model of SPHY was set up for the >
> >
>
> n
: ∑i¼1 ðQobsi −Qobs Þ 2
∑ ðQsimi −Qsim Þ2 >
;
western Karakoram watershed of the Hunza up to Dainyor
i¼1
Bridge discharge gauging site. The Dainyor Bridge gauge is
located at the lower end of the Hunza River, before its conflu- ∑ni¼1 ðQobsi −Qsimi Þ  100
PBIAS ¼ ð3Þ
ence to the Gigit River, and therefore represents the flow for ∑ni¼1 ðQobsi Þ
the entire Hunza basin. We have calibrated the model for the sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
hydrological years of October 1994 to September 1997 and ∑ni¼1 ðQobsi −Qsimi Þ2
RMSE ¼ ð4Þ
validated the model for the hydrological years of October n
1997 to September 2000. To validate the skill of calibrated
where Qobsi = measured observed flow, Qsimi = measured
SPHY model, we use multiple skill-measuring matrices, such
simulated flow, Qobs = Average measured observed flow,
as Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE), coefficient of determina-
and Qsim = Average measured simulated flow.
tion (R2), percentage of bias (PBIAS), and root mean square
error (RMSE).
Being a ratio of mean squared error to observed variance, 3.4 Future water availability
subtracted from the unity, NSE is a measure of how well the
observed hydrograph fits the simulated one, resulting in -∞ as After calibration and validation, we drove the SPHY
a worst fit and 1 as a perfect fit (Nash and Sutcliffe 1970). The model with the bias-adjusted historical (1994–2004)
R2 represents the trend of the similarity between observed and and future climates (2007–2096) as projected under
simulated discharges, and its value around unity indicates the three RCPs that represent a rise in the radiative forcing
best fit (Eq. (2)). The PBIAS measures the average trend of levels up to 2.6, 4.5, and 8.5 W m−2 by the end of the

Table 3 List of CORDEX south Asia experiments, downscaling RCMs, and driving GCMs

CORDEX CORDEX Contributing CORDEX Modelling left Driving Contributing CMIP5 Modelling left
South Asia RCM CMIP5 GCM
experiment model model

MIROC5_ RCA4 Rossby Centre regional atmospheric model MIROC5 The Model for Interdisciplinary Research on
SMHI-RC- version 4-2 (RCA4), Swedish Meteorological Climate (MIROC), Jointly developed at the left
A4 and Hydrological Institute (Samuelsson et al. for Climate System Research (CCSR), University
2011) of Tokyo; National Institute for Environmental
Studies (NIES); and Japan Agency for
Marine-Earth Science and Technology
(Watanabe et al. 2010)
NorESM1_ RCA4 Rossby Centre regional atmospheric model NorESM1-M The Norwegian Earth System Model (NorESM),
SMHI-RC- version 4-2 (RCA4), Swedish Meteorological the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research in
A4 and Hydrological Institute (Samuelsson et al. Bergen, Norway (Bentsen et al. 2013)
2011)
MPI-ESM-LR_ RCA4 Rossby Centre regional atmospheric model MPI-ESM-LR Max-Planck-Institute Earth System Model
RCA4 version 4-2 (RCA4), Swedish Meteorological (MPI-ESM), Max-Planck-Institut fur
and Hydrological Institute (Samuelsson et al. Meteorologie, Klima Campus Hamburg,
2011) Germany (Giorgetta et al. 2013)
MPI-ESM-LR_ REMO Regional Model for climate simulations; Max MPI-ESM-LR Max-Planck-Institute Earth System Model
REMO Plank Institute of Meteorology and German (MPI-ESM), Max-Planck-Institut fur
Climate Computing Centre (DKRZ) (Jacob Meteorologie, Klima Campus Hamburg,
et al. 2001) Germany (Giorgetta et al. 2013)
Future water availability from the western Karakoram under representative concentration pathways as...
Fig. 3 The methodology used in the study
century. For each RCP, four simulations performed by
distinct RCM-GCM combination under the framework
of the CORDEX South Asia experiments were consid-
ered to drive the SPHY model in order to account for
the inter-model spread. Daily future climate data were
bias-adjusted against the station observations using the
empirical quantile mapping method, which depending
on point-wise daily construction of the empirical cumu-
lative distribution function (ecdf) can be applied to any
kind of climatic variables, particularly to precipitation. It
is pertinent to mention that here we assumed a constant
glacier extent, in order to quantify the inter-model,
spread for RCPs, and uncertainty spectrum of the over-
all future water available. We assess changes in the
future total flows and their components for three differ-
ent climates, such as near-future climate (2007–2036),
mid-future climate (2037–2066), and far-future or end-
of-century climate (2067–2096) with comparison with
the historical period (1994–2004). Our analysis particu-
larly focuses on the shifts in timings of the future
hydrographs, mean flow changes, and changes in the
flow duration curves for each considered future climate,
in addition to the mean annual flows’ evolution
throughout the 21st century under all RCP scenarios.
4 Results and discussion
4.1 SPHY model calibration and validation
Sensitivity analysis is performed to figure out the parameters
that influence the response of the model and have a strong
impact on the model’s output. The interaction between differ-
ent parameters, their range, and spatial scale variability is an-
alyzed through the sensitivity assessment (Devak and Dhanya
2017). The following parameters were found most sensitive
during the sensitivity experiments of the SPHY model:
degree-day factor for debris-covered glacier (DDFdc) and
degree-day factor for debris-free glaciers (DDFci), baseflow
recession coefficient (αgw), routing recession coefficient (kx),
and crop factor (Kc).
The glacier melt parameters DDFci and DDFdc (Table 4)
were optimized to yield the best match between the observed
and simulated data. The Kc is used to calculate the potential
 E. Fatima et al.

Table 4 Critical SPHY model

calibration parameters, their Parameter Parameter description Unit Range Calibrated value
ranges, and calibrated values
Glacier melt (QGM)
DDFci Degree-day factor debris-free glaciers mm °C day−1 3–9 4.5
DDFdc Degree-day factor debris-covered glaciers mm °C day−1 1–7 2.0
Snowmelt (QSM)
Tcrit Critical temperature °C −3–3 2.0
SnowSC Water storage capacity of snow pack mm mm−1 0–1 0.50
DDFs Degree-day factor snow mm °C day−1 3–9 5.00
Rainfall-Runoff (QRR)
αgw Baseflow recession coefficient - 0.001–0.2 0.55
deltaGw Groundwater recharge delay time day 1–180 3.0
GlacF Glacier melt runoff factor - 0–1 0.9
Rootdepth Thickness of root zone mm 50–1000 300
Subdepth Thickness of subsoil mm 300–3000 1600
kx Routing recession coefficient - 0.5–0.99 0.88

evapotranspiration from the reference evapotranspiration, and
the maximum value of crop cover (Kc max) occurred in
completely covered vegetation conditions. The baseflow re-
sponse to changes in groundwater recharge was related
through αgw index. The slowly responded areas to groundwa-
ter recharge correspond to lower values for αgw and a quick
response to groundwater recharge corresponds to higher
values of αgw (Terink et al. 2015). Calibration was performed
on daily time steps from October 1994 to September 1997.
SPHY model was validated with the same calibrated parameter
from October 1997 to September 2000. The ranges of the top
sensitive parameters along with the selected values that led to the
successful calibration of the SPHY model are given in Table 4.
The calibration and validation results of the SPHY model
for the Hunza basin are plotted in Fig. 4 and are quantified in
Table 5. For the calibration period (1994–1997), NSE and R2
estimates are around 0.9 with a slightly positive bias of 13%
and the RMSE of around 120 m3 s−1. During the validation
period (1997–2000), NSE and R2 have been around 0.8 with a
slightly negative bias of around 12% and the RMSE around
180 m3 s−1. Slightly lower performance during the validation
period owes to the fact that the model could not capture the
peak discharges during the drought years of 1999 and 2000.
Nevertheless, for the overall period, both NSE and R2 were at
0.83 with a negligible negative bias and the RMSE of 154 m3
s−1. Depending upon the NSE alone, Ritter and Muñoz-
carpena (2013) have subjectively classified the hydrological
model efficiency in four subjective classes, which includes
“Unsatisfactory” (NSE < 0.65), “Acceptable” (NSE = 0.65–
0.7999), “Good” (NSE = 0.800–0.899), and “Very good”
(NSE = 0.900–1.000). According to such classification, our
calibration results are “Very Good,” whereas the validation as
well as the overall performance of the SPHY model for 1994–
2000 periods lies in the “Good” category, indicating a suc-
cessful implementation of the model for the Hunza basin.
Though the duration of calibration and validation was lim-
ited to 7 years, similar results with high R2 values and for a
short period of time have also been reported in the few previ-
ous studies in the high-altitude glacierized and snow-fed river
basins. For example, Ragettli et al. (2013) evaluated the

Fig. 4 Calibration (October 1994

to September 1997) and
validation (October 1997 to
September 2000) of the SPHY
model for Hunza basin, western
Karakoram, Pakistan
Future water availability from the western Karakoram under representative concentration pathways as...

Table 5 Calibration and

validation results of the SPHY Simulated period NSE R2 Bias (%) RMSE (m3s−1)
model
Calibration Oct 1994 to Sep 1997 0.87 0.90 13.7 124.21
Validation Oct 1997 to Sep 2000 0.80 0.81 − 12.7 179.28
Overall Oct 1994 to Sep 2000 0.83 0.83 − 1.1 154.23

performance of TOPKAPI-ETH (TOPographic Kinematic
APproximation and Integration) model in Hunza basin for
the 3-year evaluation period. The range of TOPKAPI-ETH
calibration for statistical assessment is consistent with the
values given in Table 5. In an integrated simulation of snow
and glacier melt hydrological modeling framework, Shrestha
et al. (2015) found the highest correlation coefficient values (R2 >
0.9) for 3-year calibration and validation period. Similarly, Garee
et al. (2017) used SAWAT hydrological model in Hunza basin
with R2 value 0.91 for 3-year validation period.
4.2 Future water availability
4.2.1 Intra-annual changes
Figure 5 shows annual cycles of historical and future dis-
charges generated from snowmelt under three RCP scenarios
and for three 21st century climates. For the near-future cli-
mate, all RCPs project a substantial increase in the snowmelt
runoff during the latter half of the snowmelt season,
particularly during the months of June, July, and August,
mainly due to strengthening of the westerly solid precipitation
regime.
Likewise, peak snowmelt runoff is projected to shift from
May and June to the month of July, indicating a 1-month delay
in the melt out timings. On the other hand, the start of snow-
melt has been projected earlier in late February owing to
spring and winter warming. Ensemble mean suggests only a
slight increase in the snowmelt runoff under RCP8.5 as com-
pared with relatively less warm scenarios of RCP4.5, followed
by RCP2.6. However, changes become stark for the mid-future
climate except for the snowmelt runoff, which is projected to
decrease slightly under the RCP8.5 due to higher projected
warming as compared with RCP4.5 and RCP2.6, subsequently
indicating shortly an early melt out timing. In contrast to near-
and mid-future climates that feature no change in the timings of
the snowmelt peak runoff, the end-of-century (far-future) climate
projects a month earlier onset under RCP8.5 and a month early
melt out under both RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios. However,
the RCP2.6 scenario projects no change in the timings of peak
snowmelt runoff for the far-future climate. Note that the inter-

Fig. 5 Inter-model ensemble means of the discharge annual cycles for the RCP2.6, RCP4.5, and RCP8.5 (in green, blue, and red) for the near-, mid-, and
far-future climates (in top to bottom rows), for snowmelt runoff component (left column), and for glacier melt runoff component (right column)

model spread decreases for RCP8.5 as compared with other sce-
narios (not shown).
Figure 5 suggests the sensitivity of the glacier melt to future
warming as the ensemble mean glacier melt runoff is
projected to increase substantially whereas peak equally ob-
served in July and August will become prominent in the latter
month under near-future climate and for all scenarios. Such an
inter-model agreement is relatively weak for the mid-future
climate whereas glacier melt increase is higher for the high-end
warming scenario of RCP8.5, followed by RCP4.5 and RCP2.6.
The differences in the glacier melt, its early start, and late melt out
under different RCP scenarios become stark by the end-of-
century whereas peak timings remain in August throughout the
21st century. The historical glacier melt contribution will increase
by 10, 9, and 15% for near-future; 22, 39, and 66% for mid-
future; and 18, 65, and 160% for far-future under RCP2.6,
RCP4.5, and RCP8.5, respectively (Table 6).
Annual cycles of the rainfall-runoff and base flow are
shown in Fig. 6. Interestingly, the pattern of the base flow
changes under different future climates, and RCP scenarios
are quite similar to glacier melt runoff, suggesting that glacier
melt will dominantly contribute to the base flow under warmer
climates. We note a marked inter-model spread for the
rainfall-runoff component, which is relatively higher for the
monsoon period as compared with the westerly precipitation
regime (not shown). Model projects increase in the westerly
precipitation with a more prominent peak in April followed by
in November, where such increase is higher for the high-end
warming scenarios. With a weak inter-model agreement, the
rainfall-runoff during the monsoonal precipitation regime
weakens throughout the century and under all scenarios ex-
cept RCP8.5 for the end-of-century climate.
Overall, total water availability is projected to rise through-
out the 21st century, where such increase is mainly confined to
the melt season. For near-future climate, the discharge will
increase during June–September period but the peak timings
will remain unchanged as equally observed in July and August
months (Fig. 7). The rise in June and September discharges
will be accompanied by a slightly early onset and delayed
Table 6 Ensemble mean changes in future discharge and its individual
components from the Hunza basin, western Karakoram for near-future
(2007–2036), mid-future (2037–2066), and far-future (2067–2096)
Climates Historical Near-future
(m3s−1) RCP26 (%) RCP45 (%) RCP85 (%) RCP26 (%) RCP45 (%) RCP85 (%) RCP26 (%) RCP45 (%) RCP85 (%)
Snowmelt (QSM), 60 155 150 158
Glacier melt(QGM) 205 10 9 15
Rain runoff (QRR) 10 164 144 175
Base flow (QBF) 24 7 6 11
Total flow (QTOT) 299 45 42 49
E. Fatima et al.
retreat timings as compared with the historical discharges.
Such changes are again marked for high-end warming scenar-
ios as apparent for the mid- and far-future climates. As we go
towards the end of the century, peak discharge timing in
August becomes more prominent, particularly for the
RCP8.5 scenarios. Overall, historical mean annual discharge
is projected to increase by 45, 42, and 49% for near-future
climate, by 51, 64, and 85% for mid-future climate, and by
52, 82, and 155% for far-future climate under RCP2.6,
RCP4.5, and RCP8.5 scenarios, respectively (Table 6).
These findings suggest that overall discharge from the
Hunza basin, western Karakoram, will increase throughout
the 21st century, where such an increase will be higher for
relatively high-end warming scenarios.
4.2.2 Inter-annual changes
In Fig. 8, we show the inter-model ensemble mean annual
discharges throughout the 21st century for all RCPs and all
considered hydrological components.
There are relatively large inter-model spreads for the snow-
melt and rainfall-runoff components as compared with glacier
melt and baseflow (not shown). These spreads are associated
with a varying skill of each RCM/GCM in simulating the
westerly and monsoonal precipitation regimes over their ex-
treme margins over the Indus basin (Hasson et al. 2016, 2018).
Interestingly, snowmelt runoff features a declining trend
throughout the 21st century and under all RCP scenarios.
Such a decline is more prominent for RCP8.5 as compared
with less warming scenarios. A difference between the RCP
scenarios becomes apparent during the latter half of the 21st
century. Consistently, rainfall-runoff has an increasing trend,
which is also relatively more prominent for RCP8.5, implying
weakening of the nival but strengthening of the glacial and
pluvial regimes for the western Karakoram. Glacier melt, base
flow, and overall discharge will slightly increase throughout
the century for RCP2.6, whereas such increase is higher for
RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios, particularly from the middle
of the 21st century. Hasson (2016b) and Hasson et al. (2019)
climates for all RCP scenarios of 2.6, 4.5 and 8.5. Changes are given in
percentages of historical simulated discharges given in m3s−1
Mid-future Far-future
144 139 131 157 125 101
22 39 66 18 65 160
155 185 228 191 215 352
18 33 59 14 59 149
51 64 85 52 82 155
Future water availability from the western Karakoram under representative concentration pathways as...
Fig. 6 Same as Fig. 5, but for the rainfall-runoff and baseflow components
consistently reported the strengthening of the glacial and plu-
vial regimes for the whole upper Indus basin, resulting in
abundant water supplies until existing cryosphere reaches a
Fig. 7 Same as Fig. 5, but for the total discharge
tipping point. This emphasizes on the continuous monitoring
of the existing cryosphere within the Hunza and upper Indus
basins, in addition to assessing the impacts of changing
cryosphere on the future water availability under warmer cli-
mates, by employing an extensive set of hypothetically gen-
erated cryosphere change scenarios.
4.2.3 Changes in the flow duration curves
The flow duration curve (FDC) represents the percentage of time
for which the flow in a river channel is equaled or exceeded to
some quantified values of interest. To analyze the integrated
effect of hydro-climatic changes within the Hunza basin, we plot
FDC for near-, mid-, and far-future climates and for all RCPs
(Fig. 9). We note a decrease in the variability of Hunza river
discharge as FDC for near mid- and far-future climates under
all scenarios feature relatively horizontal slope as compared with
that of the historical period. Generally, the probability of occur-
rence and magnitude of the mid-to-high flows are projected to
increase for mid- and far-future climates under all RCPs. These
changes are particularly prominent for the RCP8.5 for the end-of-
century climate. Less steep low flow curve as compared with that
of the historical period indicates relatively low basin storage in
the future, which is consistent with our findings of weakening
nival regime under warmer climates. Similar to an increase in the
low-frequency high flows, inter-model spread also increases for
the warmer climate and towards the end of the 21st century.
The historic period low flow (Q95) will decrease sig-
nificantly in near-, mid-, and far-future climatologies
 E. Fatima et al.

Fig. 8 Annual evolution of the

snowmelt, glacier melt, rainfall-
runoff, and baseflow components
along with the total discharge for
the Hunza basin, western
Karakoram, under all three
scenarios of RCP2.6, RCP4.5,
and RCP8.5 (in green, blue, and
red)

under all RCPs scenarios (Table 7). This reduction in
the low flows will project potential drought conditions
in the Hunza basin. On the other hand, the median
(Q50) and high (Q5) flow are projected to increase con-
tinuously through the end of the 21st century under all
scenarios. The historical median flows of 87 m3/s are
projected to increase by 38 to 59% under RCP2.6, 56 to
66% under RCP4.5, and 58 to 77% under RCP8.5 (see
Table 7). The historic high flow of 1342 m 3 /s is
projected to increase by 10% under RCP2.6 in near future

Fig. 9 Flow duration curves

under RCP2.6, RCP4.5, and
RCP8.5 scenarios for the mid-
future and far-future climates for
the Hunza Basin, western
Karakoram
Future water availability from the western Karakoram under representative concentration pathways as...
Table 7 Multi-model ensemble
mean low flows (Q95), median Scenario Reference (m3/s)
flows (Q50) and high flows (Q5) (1970–2000)
from the Hunza basin, western
Karakoram under RCP4.5 and Q95 Q50 Q5
RCP8.5 for mid-future (2037–
2066) and far-future (2067–2096) RCP 2.6 38 87 1324
climates RCP 4.5 38 87 1342
RCP 8.5 38 87 1342
and 42% under RCP8.5 in far-future climate change projec-
tions. The strong positive changes in the median flows suggest
that the Hunza basin will confront frequent and heavy
flooding in the future. However, the changes in the high flows
suggest that the frequency of the floods will reduce as com-
pared with median flows by the end of the 21st century under
all RCPs scenarios (Table 7).
5 Discussion
To assess the future water availability from the western
Karakoram, we used future climate datasets from three RCP
scenarios, i.e., RCP2.6, RCP4.5, and RCP8.5. These RCP
experiments are simulated either by the GCMs participating
in the CMIP5 or at a relatively high planar resolution of ~ 50
km, by the RCMs under the CORDEX framework for the
South Asia domain. A fully distributive hydrological model
SPHY was successfully setup at Danyor gauge in Hunza basin
to project the future daily streamflow with a high correlation
coefficient for calibration (R2 = 0.9) and validation (R2 = 0.8).
Overall, with an intermediate inter-model agreement, rainfall-
runoff will increase on an annual scale, where such increase is
higher under warmer scenario and in the latter part of the
century, suggesting either wetter conditions, or more transi-
tion of solid moisture into liquid, or both under warmer cli-
mates. Although the overall snowmelt contribution will re-
main substantially higher than that of the historical period, it
will decrease throughout the 21st century and decrease more
under relatively warmer RCP. Nevertheless, the snowmelt
contribution is projected to become double by the end-of-
century climate under RCP8.5 (Table 6).
From FDC analysis, we concluded that the median and
high flows will increase under all scenarios in line with the
previous studies conducted across the Indus Basin (e.g.,
Mahmood et al. 2016; Hassan et al. 2019). Archer (2003)
suggested that the flow of UIB depends on three distinct re-
gimes. Very high altitude glacial regime where the runoff
depends on summer temperature and middle altitude nival
regime where river flow depends on seasonal snowmelt accu-
mulated in spring and winter seasons and a monsoon-
dependent rainfall regime at the foothills of Himalayan moun-
tains (Archer 2003). The increase in median and high flow is
Near-future Mid-future Far-future
(2007–2036) (2037–2066) (2067–2096)
Q95 Q50 Q5 Q95 Q50 Q5 Q95 Q50 Q5
− 105 59 10 − 80 59 9 − 83 38 12
− 125 56 8 − 66 63 15 − 65 66 24
− 104 58 9 − 54 68 22 0 77 42
most likely related to these identified climate runoff regimes
which will result in more future water availability in the
Hunza basin (Archer et al. 2010). The strong positive changes
in the median flows suggest that the Hunza basin will confront
frequent and heavy flooding in the future which is line with
findings of Lutz et al. (2016). However, the changes in the
high flows suggest that the frequency of the floods will be less
as compared with median flows by the end of the 21st century
under all RCP scenarios (Table 7).
Uncertainties and limitations in future projections mainly arise
from input data, the natural climatic variability, dynamic and phys-
ics of climate models, model’s parametrization, and physical pro-
cesses represented in the climate as well as in hydrological models.
In the present research, station-based observed meteorological data
was used to force SPHY and to correct the biases in the future
climate dataset. There are only three unequally distributed meteo-
rological stations in the Hunza basin (Table 2). Only Khunjreb
station is at significant altitude (4440 masl), while the other two
stations, i.e., Naltar and Ziarat, are below 4000 m altitude. Later
stations are valley-based and do not cover the accumulation zones
at high-altitude areas. This means that measurement data are miss-
ing in many areas, especially at high elevation. As a result, uncer-
tainties are introduced when bias corrections are made on the basis
of station data that do not cover the precipitation accumulation
zones. In situ remote-sensing or remote-sensing products do not
exhibit fine resolution, leading to uncertainty in estimating the total
amount of ice, and no significant snow cover trend has been ob-
served (Hasson et al. 2013).
In the SPHY model, physical processes representation, snow-
making process simulation, and the model’s parameterization
could further lead to uncertainties in the simulated results.
Melting, accumulation, sublimation, and refreezing processes
are well simulated in SPHY. However, it does not account for
snow transport processes through gravity or redistribution of
snow by wind (Wijngaard et al. 2017). Such misrepresentation
of physical processes can overestimate the snow accumulation
and conservation. To overcome the aforementioned uncer-
tainties, an integrated SnowSlide model at high spatial resolution
can be used to simulate the gravitational snow transport
(Bernhardt and Schulz 2010; Wijngaard et al. 2017)
The catchments of UIB are connected with more than 3000
glaciers (Thayyen and Gergan 2010), and no historic data is
available to assess the glacier melt contribution to streamflow

of the UIB (Hassan et al. 2019). Moreover, changes in future
glaciers and projections in the melt rate are linked with limited
information of the glacier module (Wijngaard et al. 2017).
The simulation with current regional climate models leads
to significant errors due to the complexity of the climate of the
HKH region (Hassan et al. 2015). The projections from single
RCM can be highly overconfident and misrepresent the range
of uncertainties. In the present study, an ensemble of RCMs is
used to minimize the uncertainties in future projections.
Another uncertainty arises from the distinction between
debris-covered and debris-free glaciers (Akhtar et al. 2009).
Elevation and slope thresholds are used to differentiate debris-
covered and debris-free glaciers; nevertheless, the local geol-
ogy and geomorphology play a vital role in this regard
(Wijngaard et al. 2017). The melt rate for debris-covered gla-
cier differs to debris-free glacier (Reid et al. 2012), and this
difference could further lead to uncertainty in glacier melt
simulation. At present, no basin map is available with the
distinction between debris-covered and debris-free glacier
for UIB (Lutz et al. 2016). In the current version of SPHY, a
distinction has been made on assumptions of different degree-
day factors for both types of glaciers (Terink et al. 2015). One
of the key uncertainty in the streamflow from high mountain
water balance is the limited understanding of sublimation pro-
cesses (MacDonald et al. 2010; Wagnon et al. 2013).
Extensive cold biases over the HKH region are one of the
common problems in RCMs simulations (Hassan et al.
2019). Improvement in the cloud radiative processes and
model physics in terms of parameters that control the deep
convection could help us to identify the causes of uncertainties
in future projections (Hassan et al. 2019).
6 Conclusion
Pakistan is among the water-scarce countries and its water
resources are highly vulnerable to climate change. This study
examined the potential impact of plausible climate change on
water availability from the Hunza river basin, western
Karakoram, Pakistan. Here, we have successfully set up a
fully distributed hydrological model of SPHY and forced it
with a variety of RCP scenarios for the near-future (2007–
2036), mid-future (2037–2066), and far-future (2067–2096)
climates within the 21st century, as simulated under the
CORDEX South Asia framework. Our results suggest an
overall increase in the mean annual flow from the Hunza basin
under all RCP scenarios and throughout the 21st century.
Such an increase mainly confines to the high flows period
and dominates by the increased glacier melt contribution.
Although, the snowmelt contribution will remain higher than
the historical period throughout the 21st century; however, it
features a declining trend, which is consistent with the rising
trend of the rainfall-runoff contribution, in view of the
E. Fatima et al.
possible transition of the solid moisture into the liquid under
warmer worlds. Snowmelt peak timings are first projected to
delay and then shift earlier by 1 month while peak timings for
the base flow, glacier melt, and the overall discharge become
more prominent in August. Predominantly, depending on the
enhanced glacier melt contribution under warming worlds, the
future water supply from the Hunza basin is projected to in-
crease until the existing cryosphere reaches the tipping
point—when this will happen is the focus of our future study.
This question can be addressed by employing a mass conserv-
ing glacier module introduced in the recent SPHY model ver-
sion 2.2 that can simulate the retreat for the glacier based on
accumulation, ablation, and redistribution of snow and ice.
Furthermore, high and median flows will increase while low
flows will decrease in the near-, mid-, and far-future climates
under all RCP scenarios.
Acknowledgments This study was a part of the master research work of
the first author conducted at the Institute of Space Technology (IST),
Islamabad. The authors are grateful to Future Water Netherland for pro-
viding the SPHY model in the public domain. The German Climate
Computing Centre (DKRZ) is acknowledged for providing the
CORDEX South Asia dataset at Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF)
node. Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) Pakistan is
also acknowledged for providing the daily observed datasets of tempera-
ture, precipitation, and streamflow for the Hunza Basin.
Funding information Shabeh ul Hasson thanks the support from the
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research
Foundation) through the Cluster of Excellence “CliSAP” (EXC177),
and under Germany’s Excellence Strategy –EXC2037 “CLICCS -
Climate, Climatic Change, and Society” –Project Number: 390683824,
contribution to the Center for Earth System Research and Sustainability
(CEN) of Universität Hamburg.
Compliance with ethical standards
Conflict of interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of
interest.
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