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Impacts of global climate change in a hydrologically vulnerable region: challenges to South African hydrologists

Department of Agricultural Engineering, University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, Private Bag X01, 3209 Scottsville, South Africa

South Africa is already hydrologically vulnerable and this is likely to be exacerbated by both nonpermanent ENSO-related as well as more permanently greenhouse-gas forced climate changes. Climate change effects are explained by way of the hydrological equation. This serves as a backdrop to a brief review, in a hydrological context, of projected perturbations to temperature, rainfall and potential evaporation, over southern Africa. Methodologies for simulating hydro logical responses to climate change are assessed. These include more direct GCM-derived output, with some emphasis on recent advances in climatic downscaling, and the application of appro priate hydrological models for use in impact studies. Scale problems of importance to hydrologists are highlighted. Directions to which climate change-related hydrological research efforts should be expended in South Africa are summarized, before two case study simulations, one a general sensitivity study of hydrological responses to changes in rainfall over southern Africa, the other a more specific hydrological response study to the El Niño of the 1982-83 season, are presented. The article concludes with a discussion on whether or not water resources practitioners in South Africa should respond to climate change.

Key Words: climate change • hydrological response • South Africa • downscaling • sensitivity.

Progress in Physical Geography, Vol. 21, No. 1, 113-136 (1997)
DOI: 10.1177/030913339702100107


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