Department of Civil, Environmental and Mechanical Engineering, University of Trento, Via Mesiano 77, I-38123 Trento, Italy.
Department of Civil, Environmental and Mechanical Engineering, University of Trento, Via Mesiano 77, I-38123 Trento, Italy.
Sci Total Environ. 2016 Feb 1;543(Pt B):965-80. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2015.05.009. Epub 2015 May 14.
Climate change is expected to cause alterations of streamflow regimes in the Alpine region, with possible relevant consequences for several socio-economic sectors including hydropower production. The impact of climate change on water resources and hydropower production is evaluated with reference to the Noce catchment, which is located in the Southeastern Alps, Italy. Projected changes of precipitation and temperature, derived from an ensemble of 4 climate model (CM) runs for the period 2040-2070 under the SRES A1B emission scenario, have been downscaled and bias corrected before using them as climatic forcing in a hydrological model. Projections indicate an increase of the mean temperature of the catchment in the range 2-4K, depending on the climate model used. Projections of precipitation indicate an increase of annual precipitation in the range between 2% and 6% with larger changes in winter and autumn. Hydrological simulations show an increase of water yield during the period 2040-2070 with respect to 1970-2000. Furthermore, a transition from glacio-nival to nival regime is projected for the catchment. Hydrological regime is expected to change as a consequence of less winter precipitation falling as snow and anticipated melting in spring, with the runoff peak decreasing in intensity and anticipating from July to June. Changes in water availability reflect in the Technical Hydropower Potential (THP) of the catchment, with larger changes projected for the hydropower plants located at the highest altitudes. Finally, the impacts on THP of water use policies such as the introduction of prescriptions for minimum ecological flow (MEF) have been analyzed. Simulations indicate that in the lower part of the catchment reduction of the hydropower production due to MEF releases from the storage reservoirs counterbalances the benefits associated to the projected increases of inflows as foreseen by simulations driven only by climate change.
气候变化预计将导致阿尔卑斯地区的河川流量模式发生变化，这可能对包括水电生产在内的多个社会经济部门产生相关影响。本研究以意大利东南部阿尔卑斯山的诺塞（Noce）流域为案例，评估了气候变化对水资源和水电生产的影响。利用 4 个气候模型（CM）在 SRES A1B 排放情景下对 2040-2070 年期间的降水和温度进行预测，并在将其作为水文模型的气候强迫之前进行降尺度和偏差校正。预测结果表明，流域平均气温将升高 2-4K，具体取决于所使用的气候模型。降水预测表明，年降水量将增加 2-6%，冬季和秋季变化较大。水文模拟显示，与 1970-2000 年相比，2040-2070 年期间流域的水量产出将增加。此外，预计该流域将从冰碛-冰雪混合状态过渡到冰雪状态。由于冬季降水以雪的形式减少，预计春季会融化，径流量峰值的强度降低，时间提前到 7 月到 6 月，水文状况预计会发生变化。水资源可用性的变化反映在流域的技术水力发电潜力（THP）中，预计位于最高海拔的水电站的变化较大。最后，还分析了水利用政策（如规定最小生态流量（MEF））对 THP 的影响。模拟结果表明，在流域下游，由于水库放水以满足 MEF 要求，水电生产减少，这抵消了仅受气候变化驱动的模拟所预测的来水增加带来的好处。
