Climate change impacts on water resources in tropical mountain regions: an Andean perspective

Abstract:

Tropical mountain areas provide a plethora of environmental services of which water supply is among the most important. There is currently a strong political interest in developing compensation and incentivization schemes for farmers or landowners to integrate these services in their land management. Quantifying the impact of human activities such as local land use changes and global climate change on these services is therefore essential, yet problematic. This study quantifies the impact of climate change on water resources in the tropical Andes, and puts the results in a management perspective. The entire set of models of the CMIP3 climate ensemble is downscaled and routed through a tailor-made regional hydrological model to assess future water availability. Taking the average of the CMIP3 projections, the impact of climate change on water resources is limited, as a result of a trade-off between increased …

Año de publicación:

2010

Keywords:

Fuente:

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