Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
ABSTRACT This study assessed the impact of climate change on streamflow and extreme hydrological event trends in the Tendaho Catchment. Bias correction of climate model outputs was performed using Distribution Mapping, and the corrected variables were ensembled using a Long-Short Term Memory model. Land use and land cover were classified via Random Forest in Google Earth Engine. The performance of the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model was evaluated using the coefficient of determination, Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency, and percentage of bias during calibration and validation. Hydrological extreme trends were analyzed using Mann-Kendall and Spearman's Rho. Projected temperature increases across all scenarios, with rainfall decreasing under SSP2-4.5 and increasing under SSP5-8.5. Streamflow decline by 3.16% (2050), rise by 7.96% (2080) under SSP2-4.5, by 8.81% (2050), and 27.94% (2080) under SSP5-8.5. Extreme flow trends showed an increase (decrease) under the baseline and SSP2-4.5. An increase under SSP5-8.5, except for a contrasting trend of 10th percentile flow between the Mann-Kendall and Spearman's Rho in the SSP5-8.5 (2080). Rainfall drives streamflow more than temperature under the SSP2-4.5, with a mixed contribution under the SSP5-8.5. These findings highlight the need for climate-resilient water management strategies in the region.
Guyasa et al. (Fri,) studied this question.