Identifying potential effects of climate change on the development of water resources in Pinios River Basin, Central Greece

• Main Authors: G. Arampatzis, A. Panagopoulos, V. Pisinaras, E. Tziritis, F. Wendland
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: SpringerOpen 2018-03-01
• Series: Applied Water Science
• Subjects: Climate change; Water resource regional climate models; Precipitation; Temperature; Pinios River Basin
• Online Access: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13201-018-0690-1
• ISSN: 2190-5487; 2190-5495

Abstract The aim of the present study is to assess the future spatial and temporal distribution of precipitation and temperature, and relate the corresponding change to water resources’ quantitative status in Pinios River Basin (PRB), Thessaly, Greece. For this purpose, data from four Regional Climate Models (RCMs) for the periods 2021–2100 driven by several General Circulation Models (GCMs) were collected and bias-correction was performed based on linear scaling method. The bias-correction was made based on monthly precipitation and temperature data collected for the period 1981–2000 from 57 meteorological stations in total. The results indicate a general trend according to which precipitation is decreasing whilst temperature is increasing to an extent that varies depending on each particular RCM–GCM output. On the average, annual precipitation change for the period 2021–2100 was about − 80 mm, ranging between − 149 and + 35 mm, while the corresponding change for temperature was 2.81 °C, ranging between 1.48 and 3.72 °C. The investigation of potential impacts to the water resources demonstrates that water availability is expected to be significantly decreased in the already water-stressed PRB. The water stresses identified are related to the potential decreasing trend in groundwater recharge and the increasing trend in irrigation demand, which constitutes the major water consumer in PRB.