Assessment the Impact of Climate Change on the Drought of Jazmourian Wetland Using CanESM2 Model

Abstract

Wetlands are one of the most important natural ecosystems in arid and semi-arid regions that their moisture content has decreased in recent years due to the adverse effects of climate changes and droughts. It is necessary to evaluate the impact of such events on different ecosystems, especially these valuable ecosystems. In this study, the future drought status of Jazmourian wetland under elevated temperature was evaluated using the output of the IPCC Fifth Report Model. For this purpose, the standardized precipitation-evapotranspiration index and reconnaissance droughtindex, which take into account the impact of rising temperatures due to future climate change on droughts, were used. The effect of increasing of temperature on drought risk was studied by using the return period of drought. Results showed that the standardized precipitation- evapotranspiration index was better able to show the effect of increasing of the evapotranspiration and temperature on drought than the reconnaissance droughtindex. Therefore, Standardized precipitation- evapotranspiration was used to evaluate the future droughts under RCP scenarios. Based on the drought time series, by increasing temperatures, the future long-term droughts might be more intense and longer period than the historical period. Analysis of drought showed that drought risk would decrease on 3, 6 and 12-monthly time scales, respectively. Under the RCP2.6, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios, the risk of drought will increase at all study time scales. In general, these results can be useful for assessing climate change and managing of water resources in arid regions.

Keywords

• mann-kendall
• climate model
• standardized precipitation - evapotranspiration index
• reconnaissance drought index