Abstract
Climate change is expected to have a significant impact on the hydrologic cycle, creating changes in freshwater resources. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that, as a result, floods and prolonged droughts will take place at increasingly frequent periods. The Mediterranean has been described as one of the main climate change “hot-spots”, with recent simulations showing a collective picture of substantial drying and warming. This effect appears more pronounced during warm periods, when the seasonal decrease of precipitation can exceed control climatology by 25–30%. Despite the decreasing annual rainfall trend, an increase in the amount and intensity of wintertime rainfall is evident. However, the scientific question on the quantitative impact of these signals to small scale coastal watersheds and Mediterranean islands has not been answered. The state-of-the-art Ensembles dataset was employed to assess the impact of the changing climate on the water availability of the island of Crete at basin scale. Here, the Ensembles precipitation and temperature data is used as input for a rainfall–runoff model previous calibrated for the whole island with the principle of regionalization. Data analysis for the period 1970–2100 reveals an overall decreasing precipitation trend which, combined with a temperature rise, leads to substantial reduction of water availability. Quantitative results of hydrological change provide the data required to improve knowledge and adaptation policy to water shortages.
Article PDF
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Allen GR, Pruitt OW (1986) Rational use of the FAO Blaney–Criddle formula. J Irrig Drain Engrg 112:139
CEC (2007) Commission of the European Communities, Directive 2007/60/EC of the European Parliament and the Council of 23 October 2007 on the assessment and management of flood risks. Official Journal of the European Union L288/27: Brussels 6.11.2007
CEC (2008) Commission of the European Communities, Water Scarcity and Droughts Expert Network: Drought Management Plan Report. Technical Report- 2008- 023 19.12.2008
CEC (2009) Commission of the European Communities, white paper: adapting to climate change: towards a European framework for action. COM(2009) 147 final: climate change and water, coasts and marine issues, SEC(2009) 386, Brussels 1.4.2009
Christensen JH, Christensen OB (2003) Climate modelling: severe summertime flooding in Europe. Nature 421:805–806. doi:10.1038/421805a
Christensen JH, Christensen OB (2007) A summary of the PRUDENCE model projections of changes in European climate by the end of this century. Clim Change 81(Suppl 1):7–30
Christensen OB, Drews M, Christensen JH, Dethloff K, Ketelsen K, Hebestadt I, Rinke A (2006) The HIRHAM Regional Climate Model Version 5 (β). Tech Rep 06-17. ISSN 1399-1388. DMI, Copenhagen
Christensen JH, Kjellström E, Giorgi F, Lenderink G, Rummukainen M (2010) Weight assignment in regional climate models. Clim Res 44:179–194
Collins M, Booth BBB, Bhaskaran B, Harris GR, Murphy JM, Sexton DMH, Webb MJ (2010) Climate model errors, feedbacks and forcings: a comparison of perturbed physics and multi-model ensembles. Clim Dyn. doi:10.1007/ s00382-010-0808-0
Déqué M, Jones RG, Wild M, Giorgi F et al (2005) Global high resolution versus Limited Area Model climate change projections over Europe: quantifying confidence level from PRUDENCE results. Clim Dyn 25:653–670
Déqué M, Rowell DP, Lüthi D, Giorgi F et al (2007) An intercomparison of regional climate simulations for Europe: assessing uncertainties in model projections. Climatic Change 81(Suppl 1):53–70
Fleury P, Bakalowicz M, de Marsily G (2007) Submarine springs and coastal karst aquifers: a review. J Hydrol 339:79–92
Giorgi F (2006) Climate change hot-spots. Geophys Res Lett 33:4. doi:10.1029/2006GL025734
Giorgi F, Mearns LO (1999) Introduction to special section: regional climate modelling revisited. J Geophys Res 104:6335–6352
Giorgi F, Lionello P (2007) Climate change projections for the Mediterranean region. Glob Planet Change 63(2–3):90–104. doi:10.1016/j.gloplacha.2007.09.005
Gupta HV, Sorooshian S, Yapo PO (1998) Toward improved calibration of hydrologic models: multiple and non-commensurable measures of information. Water Resour Res 34:751–761
Heap C, Kemp-Benedict E, Raskin P (1998) Conventional worlds: technical description of bending the curve scenarios. Polestar Series Report. Stockholm Environment Institute. Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Ines AVM, Hansen JW (2006) Bias correction of daily GCM rainfall for crop simulation studies. Agric For Meteorol 138(1–4):44–53. doi:10.1016/j.agrformet.2006.03.009
IPCC (2007) The physical science basis. In: Solomon S, Qin D, Manning M, Chen Z, Marquis M, Averyt KB, Tignor M, Miller HL (eds) Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA
Jacob D (2001) A note to the simulation of the annual and inter-annual variability of the water budget over the Baltic Sea drainage basin. Meteorol Atmos Phys 77:61–73
Jacob D, Bärring L, Christensen OB, Christensen JH, de Castro M, Deque M, Giorgi F, Hagemann St, Hirschi M, Jones R, Kjellström E, Lenderink G, Rockel B, Sanchez E, Schär Ch, Seneviratne S, Somot S, van Ulden A, van den Hurk B (2007) An inter-comparison of regional climate models for Europe: design of the experiments and model performance. Climatic Change 81(Supplement 1):31–52
Jacob D, Christensen OB, Doblas-Reyes FJ, Goodess C, Tank AK, Lorenz P, Roeckner E (2008) Information on observations, global and regional modelling data availability and statistical downscaling. Ensembles Technical Reports, ISSN 1752-2854
Jaeger EB, Anders I, Lüthi D, Rockel B, Schär C, Seneviratne S (2008) Analysis of ERA40-driven CLM simulations for Europe. Meteorol Z 7:1–19
Kjellström E, Bärring L, Gollvik S, Hansson U et al (2005) A 140-year simulation of European climate with the new version of the Rossby Centre regional atmospheric climate model (RCA3). Rep Meteorol Climatol 108. SMHI, Norrköping, Sweden
Koundouri P (ed) (2008) Coping with water deficiency, from research to policymaking, with examples from Southern Europe, the Mediterranean and Developing Countries, Series. Environ Policy 48(14):157–164
Koutroulis AG, Tsanis IK, Daliakopoulos IN (2010a) Seasonality of floods and their hydrometeorologic characteristics in the island of Crete. J Hydrol. doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2010.04.025
Koutroulis AG, Vrochidou A, Tsanis IK (2010b) Spatial and temporal characteristics of droughts for the island of Crete. J Hydrometeorol. doi:10.1175/2010JHM1252.1
Landman WA, Kgatuke MJ, Mbedzi M, Beraki A, Bartman A, du Piesanie A (2009) Performance comparison of some dynamical and empirical downscaling methods for South Africa from a seasonal climate modelling perspective. Int J Climatol 29(11):1535–1549
Law AM, Kelton WD (1982) Simulation modeling and analysis. McGraw-Hill, USA, p 400
Lionello P, Malanotte P, Boscolo R (2006) Mediterranean climate variability. Elsevier, Amsterdam
Maramathas AJ, Boudouvis AG (2006) Manifestation and measurement of the fractal characteristics of karst hydrogeological formations. Adv Water Resour 29:112–116
Maxwell RM, Kollet SJ (2008) Interdependence of groundwater dynamics and land-energy feedbacks under climate change. Nature Geosci 1:665–669. doi:10.1038/ngeo315
McKee T, Doesken N, Kleist J (1993) The relationship of drought frequency and duration to time scales. In: Proceedings of the 8th conference on applied climatology. Am Met Soc, Boston, pp 179–184
Milly PCD, Dunne KA, Vecchia AV (2005) Global pattern of trends in streamflow and water availability in a changing climate. Nature 438:347–350. doi:10.1038/nature04312
Murphy J (1999) An evaluation of statistical and dynamical techniques for downscaling local climate. J Clim 12:2256–2284. doi:10.1175/1520-0442(1999)012<2256:AEOSAD>2.0.CO;2
Roeckner E, Bauml G, Bonaventura L, Brokopf R, Esch M, Giorgetta M, Hagemann S, Kirchner I, Kornbluch L, Manzini E, Rhodin A, Schlese U, Schulzweida U, Tompkins A (2004) The atmospheric general circulation model ECHAM5, Part I. Model description, Report #349, September 2004, Max-Planck Institute of Meteorology
Rummukainen M (2010) State-of-the-art with regional climate models. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews. Climatic Change 1:82–96. doi:10.1002/wcc.8
Sanchez-Gomez E, Somot S, Déqué M (2009) Ability of an ensemble of regional climate models to reproduce weather regimes over Europe-Atlantic during the period 1961–2000. Clim Dyn 33:5. doi:10.1007/s00382-008-0502-7
Schroter D, Cramer W, Leemans R, Prentice IC, Araujo MB, Arnell NW, Bondeau A, Bugmann H, Carter TR, Gracia CA et al (2005) Ecosystem service supply and vulnerability to global change in europe. Science 310:1333–1337. doi:10.1126/science.1115233
Siart C, Bubenzer O, Eitel B (2009) Combining digital elevation data (SRTM/ASTER), high resolution satellite imagery (Quickbird) and GIS for geomorphological mapping: a multi-component case study on Mediterranean karst in Central Crete. Geomorphology 112:106–121
Somot S, Sevault F, Déqué M (2006) Transient climate change scenario simulation of the Mediterranean Sea for the 21st century using a high-resolution ocean circulation model. Clim Dyn 27(7–8):851–879. doi:10.1007/s00382-006-0167-z
Somot S, Sevault F, Deque M Crepon M (2008) 21st Century climate change scenario for the Mediterranean using a coupled Atmosphere-Ocean Regional Climate Model. Glob Planet Change 63(2–3):112–126. doi:10.1016/j.gloplacha.2007.10.003
Spak S, Holloway T, Lynn B, Goldberg R (2007) A comparison of statistical and dynamical downscaling for surface temperature in North America. J Geophys Res 112:D08101. doi:10.1029/2005JD006712
Tsanis IK, Apostolaki MG (2009) Estimating groundwater withdrawal in poorly gauged agricultural basins. Water Resour Manag 23(6):1097–1123
Tsanis IK, Naoum S (2003) The effect of spatially distributed meteorological parameters on irrigation water demand assessment. Adv Water Resour 26:311–324
Van der Linden P, Mitchell JFB (eds) (2009) ENSEMBLES: climate change and its impacts: summary of research and results from the ENSEMBLES project. Met Office Hadley Centre, FitzRoy Road, Exeter EX1 3PB, UK, 160 pp
van Meijgaard E, van Ulft LH, van de Berg WJ, Bosveld FC, van den Hurk BJJM, Lenderink G, Siebesma AP (2008) The KNMI regional atmospheric climate model RACMO, version 2.1 KNMI-publication TR-302. KNMI, De Bilt
Wang L, Yen J (1999) Extracting fuzzy rules for system modeling using a hybrid of genetic algorithms and Kalman filter. Fuzzy Sets Syst 101(3):353–362. doi:10.1016/S0165-0114(97)00098-5
Wilks DS (2006) Statistical methods in the atmospheric sciences, 2nd edn. Int Geophys Ser 59:627
Wood AW, Maurer EP, Kumar A, Lettenmaier DP (2002) Longrange experimental hydrologic forecasting for the eastern United States. J Geophys Res 107(D20):4429. doi:10.1029/ 2001JD000659
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Ioannis K. Tsanis on leave from Department of Civil Engineer, McMaster University, Canada.
Electronic Supplementary Material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Tsanis, I.K., Koutroulis, A.G., Daliakopoulos, I.N. et al. Severe climate-induced water shortage and extremes in Crete. Climatic Change 106, 667–677 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-011-0048-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-011-0048-2