CIROH and IJC Collaborative Projects

The International Joint Commission (IJC) has awarded several projects to CIROH researchers. These projects aim to generate input data for hydrological models that are relevant to the local conditions and develop the tools representing dominant hydrological processes required to support water resources analysis in the Souris River Basin (SRB).

Sponsor

Project Team

Steven Burian
CIROH, The University of Alabama
Shahabul Alam
CIROH, The University of Alabama
Thomas Giambelluca
University of Hawaii at Manoa
Xiao Luo
University of Hawaii at Manoa

Collaborators

Martyn Clark
University of Calgary, University of Saskatchewan
Alain Pietroniro
University of Calgary
Simon Papalexiou
University of Calgary
Kasra Keshavarz
University of Calgary
Heba Abdelmoaty
University of Calgary
Chandra Rajulapati
University of Manitoba

Projects

Climate Downscaling for Adaptation Planning in the Souris River Basin

In 2022, the IJC highlighted the need for collaborative efforts in developing bias-corrected and downscaled (i.e., relevant to the local conditions) climate projections across borders. This project aims to improve downscaled climate scenarios for the SRB.

Objectives

This project aims to provide valuable data for water resources management and adaptation planning in the SRB by generating reliable and robust downscaled-climate change projections spanning the years 2015-2100.

Research Activities

  1. Develop bias-corrected downscaled and disaggregated CMIP6 General Circulation Models (GCMs) climate variables:
    • Focus on the SRB domain, with potential to extend to the North American domain and other transboundary river basins.
    • Focus on variables like precipitation, temperature, specific humidity, wind speed, outgoing longwave radiation, incoming shortwave radiation, and barometric pressure.
    • Generate sub-daily data from 2015-2100 with a 3-hour timestep based on 12 selected GCMs and three Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs), i.e., SSP245, SSP370, SSP585.
  2. Assessment and Improvement:
    • Identify dataset limitations and enhancement opportunities.

Preparing the Inputs and Tools Required to Support the Climate Change Modeling Chain for Application to Water Resources Analysis in the Souris River Basin

This project aims to develop bias-corrected downscaled sub-daily climate datasets over the Souris River Basin covering the years 1850-2014 to address limitations in existing techniques and the lack of binational atmospheric inputs for complex hydrological models.

Objectives

Project 2 is undertaken to provide reliable and robust downscaled climate scenarios for a historical period (i.e., 1850-2014) for adaptation planning in the SRB. This project will provide essential data for informed decision-making and climate resilience planning in the SRB.

Research Activities

  1. Dataset Development: Produce reliable downscaled historical climate datasets for the SRB using advanced prevailing techniques.
  2. Evaluation: Evaluate downscaled and bias-corrected datasets by comparing different downscaled datasets to determine their reliability.
  3. Atmospheric Inputs: Generate comprehensive disaggregated sub-daily atmospheric input data (same climate variables as Project 1) for hydrological models.
  4. Adaptation Planning: Develop a framework for large-scale climate adaptation strategies.