Climate Change Impacts on Blue and Green Water of Meki River Sub-Basin

Aster Tesfaye Hordofa (), Olkeba Tolessa Leta, Tena Alamirew and Abebe Demissie Chukalla
Additional contact information
Aster Tesfaye Hordofa: Addis Ababa University
Olkeba Tolessa Leta: Bureau of Watershed Management and Modeling, St. Johns River Water Management District
Tena Alamirew: Addis Ababa University
Abebe Demissie Chukalla: IHE Delft Institute for Water Education

Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), 2023, vol. 37, issue 6, No 33, 2835-2851

Abstract: Abstract Climate change (CC) is likely to have a negative effect on water balance components thereby increasing global water scarcity. These effects, particularly in arid and semi-arid areas, have not been fully understood, in part because green water was not adequately represented in the relevant assessments. This study analyzes the spatiotemporal variations of blue and green water resources under baseline and future climate conditions by applying the Soil and Water Assessment Tool plus (SWAT+) model to the Meki River, located in Central Rift Valley (CRV) Lake Basins of Ethiopia. Based on sensitive parameters, identified from sensitivity analysis, we calibrated and validated the SWAT + model for the period from 1993 to 2000 and 1987 to 1992, respectively. During both the calibration and validation period, the model showed reasonable performance with a Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency of greater than 0.65. The model was then used to assess the effects of CC (representative concentrations pathways, RCP, 4.5 and 8.5) on the blue and green water components of the Meki River. We found that blue water is expected to decrease under both RCPs (4.5 and 8.5) scenarios, but anticipated to show a more decline of up to 56% under the RCP 8.5 scenario. Oppositely, green water is expected to increase under both scenarios, but RCP8.5 is projected to cause a larger increase (24%) when compared to the baseline. Overall, the integrated blue and green water modeling and assessment can be used as a tool to develop efficient strategies for water resources management of the Meki River.

Keywords: Central Rift Valley Lake Basin; Ethiopia; Representative Concentration Pathways 4.5 and 8.5; SWAT+; Climate change (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11269-023-03490-4 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:waterr:v:37:y:2023:i:6:d:10.1007_s11269-023-03490-4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11269

DOI: 10.1007/s11269-023-03490-4

Access Statistics for this article

Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA) is currently edited by G. Tsakiris

More articles in Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA) from Springer, European Water Resources Association (EWRA)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().