Changes in the Hydrologic Design Discharges due to Climate Change: Bolivian Amazonia

Abstract

The Mamore river is the most important Bolivian river and one of the most important tributaries of the Amazon river. Engineers design flood control structures and water use plans considering hydrologic design discharges. Climate change will change the hydrological conditions. Thus, current hydrologic design discharges may not be valid for future conditions. Unfortunately, there are no studies about future streamflow conditions and future design discharges; hence, there is uncertainty about the future performance of flood control structures and water use plans. The present study analyzes the changes in the hydrological design discharges of the Mamore river due to climate change. The semidistributed hydrological model Supertank was used to simulate the streamflow of the Mamore considering current and future climatological conditions. Future conditions were simulated using downscaled projections of the WRF model based on projections from different general circulation models. Results show that future peak design discharges will increase between 11% and 16%. Future low flows show higher uncertainty. According to some projections future low flow will decrease 25%, while according to other projections future low flows will increase 30%.