The hydraulic transfers “Setif-Hodna” to cope with impact of climate change on Setif high plains region
| Pages | 131-141 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/WJSTSD-05-2017-0009 |
| Date | 03 April 2018 |
| Published date | 03 April 2018 |
| Author | Tarek Bouregaa,Mohamed Fenni |
| Subject Matter | Public policy & environmental management,Environmental technology & innovation |
The hydraulic transfers
“Setif-Hodna”to cope with
impact of climate change on
Setif high plains region
Tarek Bouregaa and Mohamed Fenni
Department of Agronomy, University Setif1, EL-Eulma, Algeria
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to show the impact of greenhouse gas emission
scenarios on annual temperature and precipitation changes during three periods of the twenty-firstcentury in
Setif region by using two selected GCMs; and second, to show the importance of “Setif-Hodna”hydraulic
transfers’project, like a method to adapt to the water scarcity in the future.
Design/methodology/approach –This study investigates likely changes in annual temperature and
precipitation over Setif high plains region (North-East of Algeria) under four Special Report on Emission
Scenarios scenarios: A1B, B1, A2 and B2, between three timeslices: 2030, 2060 and 2090. MAGICC-SCENGEN
5.3v.2 was used as a tool for downscaling the two selected general circulation models.
Findings –The projections of GFDLCM20 and GFDLCM21 indicate that annual temperature will increase
under the four scenarios and across the three time slices. GFDLCM20 predictions indicate a general decrease
in mean annual precipitation across the four scenarios, with average of −3.02, −2.47 and −1.07 percent
in 2030, 2060 and 2090, respectively. GFDLCM21 show a high decrease, with values of −18.72, −27.2 and
−31.9 percent across the three periods, respectively.
Originality/value –This work is one of the first to study the impact of greenhouse gas emission scenarios
on annual temperature and precipitation changes over the region, and present the hydraulic transfers project
“Setif-Hodna”like an adaptive strategy to limit the effect of water scarcity in this region.
Keywords Precipitation, Temperature, GFDLCM21, GFDLCM20, Hydraulic transfers, SRES scenarios
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
The future is uncertain and impossible to predict. However, this uncertainty of the future
often needs to be assessed in order to understand the size and nature of environmental
threats like climatic change (Claussen et al., 2003; Schenk and Lensink, 2007). Modeling of
various earth system components is an important activity for synthesizing observations,
theory, and experimental results to investigate how the Earth system works and the
influences of human activities on it (Sharma and Sharma, 2012). For a comprehensive
assessment of the impact and implications of climate change, it is necessary to apply a
number of climate change scenarios that span a reasonable range of the likely climate
change distribution. The fact that there is a distribution of future climate changes arises not
only because of incomplete understanding of the climate system (e.g. the unknown value of
the climate sensitivity, different climate model responses, etc.), but also because of the
inherent unpredictability of climate (e.g. unknowable future climate forcings and regional
differences in the climate system response to a given forcing because of chaos). The “true”
climate change distribution is of course unknown, but some sensible guesses can be made as
to its magnitude and shape and then make some choices so as to sample a reasonable part of
its range (Hulme et al., 2000). North Africa, in particular Algeria, is subject to a high degree
of climate variability across different regions and seasons which make it highly vulnerable
to climate change impacts. Climate data gathered in the region during the twentieth century
indicate heating, estimated at more than 1°C, with a pronounced trend in the past 30 years.
The data show a marked increase in the frequency of droughts and floods. The region
World Journal of Science,
Technology and Sustainable
Development
Vol. 15 No. 2, 2018
pp. 131-141
© Emerald PublishingLimited
2042-5945
DOI10.1108/WJSTSD-05-2017-0009
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/2042-5945.htm
131
Hydraulic
transfers
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