Masashi Kiguchi

Assessing the impacts of reservoir operation to floodplain inundation by combining hydrological, reservoir management, and hydrodynamic models

A catastrophic flood event which caused massive economic losses occurred in Thailand, in 2011. Several studies have already been conducted to analyze the Thai floods, but none of them have assessed the impacts of reservoir operation on flood inundation. This study addresses this gap by combining physically based hydrological models to explicitly simulate the impacts of reservoir operation on flooding in the Chao Phraya River Basin, Thailand. H08, an integrated water resources model with a reservoir operation module, was combined with CaMa-Flood, a river routing model with representation of flood dynamics. The combined H08-CaMa model was applied to simulate and assess the historical and alternative reservoir operation rules in the two largest reservoirs in the basin. The combined H08-CaMa model effectively simulated the 2011 flood: regulated flows at a major gauging station have high daily NSE-coefficient of 92% as compared with observed discharge; spatiotemporal extent of simulated flood inundation match well with those of satellite observations. Simulation results show that through the operation of reservoirs in 2011, flood volume was reduced by 8.6 billion m3 and both depth and area of flooding were reduced by 40% on the average. Nonetheless, simple modifications in reservoir operation proved to further reduce the flood volume by 2.4 million m3 and the depth and area of flooding by 20% on the average. By modeling reservoir operation with a hydrodynamic model, a more realistic simulation of the 2011 Thai flood was made possible, and the potential of reducing flood inundation through improved reservoir management was quantified.

Re-evaluation of future water stress due to socio-economic and climate factors under a warming climate

Abstract We re-evaluated a method to estimate water stress changes as a function of increasing global mean temperature. Trends in the total population under high water stress (defined as when the annual water withdrawal divided by the annual water availability is higher than 0.4) now and in the future (total HWSP) and the population exposed to high water stress in the future but not now (add_HWSP) are dependent on differences in each scenario, not the global mean temperature increase. The ensemble mean of the total HWSP and its ratio for emissions scenarios A1B and B1 are close to constant values and decreased when the global mean temperature increase exceeded 1.9°C and 1.3°C, respectively. If the global mean temperature increase reaches a maximum ensemble-mean value in each scenario, the total HWSP (its ratio) in scenarios A1B, A2 and B1 was about 4.5 billion (0.54), 8.6 billion (0.64) and 4.1 billion (0.49), respectively. We estimated the contributions of climate change to runoff, water withdrawal and population growth on total HWSP and add_HWSP to separate the influences of climate change and socio-economic change. Climate change and socio-economic factors (water withdrawal and population growth) decreased and increased add_HWSP, respectively. Editor Z.W. Kundzewicz

Projection of future world water resources under SRES scenarios: an integrated assessment

Abstract Changes in water resources availability, as affected by global climate warming, together with changes in water withdrawal, could influence the world water resources stress situation. In this study, we investigate how the world water resources situation will likely change under the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) by integrating water withdrawal projections. First, the potential changes in water resources availability are investigated by a multi-model analysis of the ensemble outputs of six general circulation models (GCMs) from organizations worldwide. The analysis suggests that, while climate warming might increase water resources availability to human society, there is a large discrepancy in the size of the water resource depending on the GCM used. Secondly, the changes in water-stressed basins and the number of people living in them are evaluated by two indices at the basin scale. The numbers were projected to increase in the future and possibly to be doubled in the 2050s for the three SRES scenarios A1b, A2 and B1. Finally, the relative impacts of population growth, water use change and climate warming on world water resources are investigated using the global highly water-stressed population as an overall indicator. The results suggest that population and socio-economic development are the major drivers of growing world water resources stress. Even though water availability was projected to increase under different warming scenarios, the reduction of world water stress is very limited. The principal alternative to sustainable governance of world water resources is to improve water-use efficiency globally by effectively reducing net water withdrawal. Editor Z.W. Kundzewicz; Associate editor D. Gerten

Modeling complex flow dynamics of fluvial floods exacerbated by sea level rise in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna Delta

Global warming is likely to exacerbate future fluvial floods in the worlds mega-delta regions due to both changing climate and rising sea levels. However, the effects of sea level rise (SLR) on fluvial floods in such regions have not been taken into account in current global assessments of future flood risk, due to the difficulties in modeling channel bifurcation and the backwater effect. We used a state-of-the-art global river routing model to demonstrate how these complexities contribute to future flood hazard associated with changing climate and SLR in the worlds largest mega-delta region, the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna Delta. The model demonstrated that flood water in the main channels flows into tributaries through bifurcation channels, which resulted in an increase in inundation depth in deltaic regions. We found that there were large areas that experienced an increase in inundation depth and period not directly from the SLR itself but from the backwater effect of SLR, and the effect propagated upstream to locations far from the river mouth. Projections under future climate scenarios as well as SLR indicated that exposure to fluvial floods will increase in the last part of the 21st century, and both SLR and channel bifurcation make meaningful contributions.

Pre-Monsoon Rain and Its Relationship with Monsoon Onset over the Indochina Peninsula

We analyzed rainfall during the pre-monsoon season from 1979 to 2002 over the Indochina Peninsula. Our multi-year analysis confirmed that the passage of the upper trough and moisture convergence in the lower troposphere produce intermittent rainfall events during the pre-monsoon season. From this result, three questions are raised. First, what are the characteristics of the upper trough? Second, what is the cause of the significant amount of moisture during the pre-monsoon season over inland Indochina? Third, what is the relationship between the intermittent pre-monsoon rainfall and monsoon onset? Our study suggests the following answers to these questions: 1) The upper trough is associated with the cyclone over the Yangtze River basin. This cyclone is baroclinic, so the upper trough over the study area is produced by the mid-latitude regime. 2) A significant amount of moisture over the Indochina Peninsula is produced by both intermittent rainfall associated with the passage of the upper trough and continuous rainfall occurred over a wide region associated with the equatorial southwesterly. 3) We found no clear relationship between rainfall amount during the pre-monsoon period and timing of monsoon onset over the Indochina Peninsula.

Seasonal characteristics of surface water quality in the wastewater catchment system of an urbanizing basin

Vientiane, Lao PDR, has been subject to extensive and ongoing urbanization plans, including development of natural marshes and residentialization of paddy fields into suburban areas, despite natural marshes playing a vital role in treating wastewater from urban areas. Therefore, it is important to understand the current situation regarding the nutrient balance in these natural wastewater treatment systems to predict future conditions and design appropriate measures against water quality deterioration. However, limited data are available in Vientiane on the hydrological characteristics of water and nutrient runoff that flow into marshes through drainage canals. In this study, we conducted a periodic survey of drainage canals and Mak Hiao River in the wastewater catchment system surrounding Vientiane during the rainy and dry seasons. We monitored the discharge of surface water at 21 observation sites and analyzed water quality of nitrogen, phosphorus, and total organic carbon. These observations revealed that the concentrations of dissolved nitrogen and phosphorus were significantly higher at sites in urban areas, followed by sites in the main river basin and those in agricultural areas. Dissolved nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations varied with runoff discharge, especially in urban and river basin sites, with lower concentrations in the rainy season and higher concentrations in the dry season. On the other hand, we found no significant differences between the rainy and dry seasons in nutrient concentrations in the agricultural basin. Finally, we proposed measures to counteract the deterioration of water quality during dry seasons and simulated the impact of these measures.