ABSTRACT This study assesses hydropower potential under historical and future climatic conditions to examine the impact of climate change on hydropower production, focusing on the three projects in the Kankai River Basin in eastern Nepal. We included six global climate models under CMIP6 scenarios after removing the biases through linear scaling for the projection of precipitation and temperature, which were forced into the Soil and Water Assessment Tool model to obtain the streamflow projections, which subsequently act as input for future hydropower potential assessment. Future projections reveal an increase in annual precipitation up to 42.11% in SSP 585 and both maximum and minimum temperatures rising up to 29.78% in SSP 585 by the end of the century, compared with the baseline. The streamflow illustrates the increasing trend, marking the typical South Asian climate of monsoon peak flow with a substantial rise in the far future of SSP 585. The analysis of three distinct hydropower shows a decrease in average annual energy generation in the near future, while an expected increase is expected in the mid future and far future, with a more pronounced increase in the far future of SSP 585. The inter-annual fluctuations raise challenges in the operations, necessitating strategic planning and designing of infrastructures and sustainable energy management.
Poudel et al. (2025) studied this question.