CLIMATE CHANGE EFFECTS ON SNOWMELT RUNOFF IN SHOGAWA RIVER BASIN

Abstract

 According to previous study, climate change can increase extreme snowmelt runoff caused by rain-on-snow (RoS) in winter in Japan Sea region. This study aims to evaluate the impact of climate change on snowmelt runoff caused by RoS on a basin scale. Targetting on Shogawa river basin within Japan Sea region, we applied database of climate prediction (d4PDF) to hydrological model which can consider snowfall and snowmelt processes through correcting a few climate indices (e.g., temperature) as a function of elevation data. While the global warming has a possibility to decrease the averaged snowmelt runoff, our result indicated that the peak flow of snowmelt runoff in future climate will be larger than that of current climate. Similarly, we found that the peak flow in RoS will become severe in future climate. Additionally, our result indicated that the severe peak flow in RoS will appear in December to March in future climate, which was rarely observed in current climate.