Colorado River Basin and Climatic Change. The Sensitivity of Streamflow and WaterSupply to Variations in Temperature and Precipitation

摘要

Growing international concern about the greenhouse effect has led to increasedinterest in the regional implications of changes in temperature and precipitation patterns for a wide range of societal and natural systems, including agriculture, sea level, biodiversity, and water resources. The accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere due to human activities are likely to have significant, though still poorly understood, impacts on water quality and availability. One method developed over the last several years for determining how regional water resources might be affected by climatic change is to develop scenarios of changes in temperature and precipitation and to use hydrologic simulation models to study the impacts of these scenarios on runoff and water supply. In the paper the authors present the results of a multi-year study of the sensitivity of the hydrology and water resources systems in the Colorado River Basin to plausible climatic changes.