TY - JOUR A1 - Aich, Valentin A1 - Akhundzadah, Noor Ahmad A1 - Knuerr, Alec A1 - Khoshbeen, Ahmad Jamshed A1 - Hattermann, Fred A1 - Paeth, Heiko A1 - Scanlon, Andrew A1 - Paton, Eva Nora T1 - Climate change in Afghanistan deduced from reanalysis and coordinated regional climate downscaling experiment (CORDEX)—South Asia Simulations JF - Climate N2 - Past and the projected future climate change in Afghanistan has been analyzed systematically and differentiated with respect to its different climate regions to gain some first quantitative insights into Afghanistan’s vulnerability to ongoing and future climate changes. For this purpose, temperature, precipitation and five additional climate indices for extremes and agriculture assessments (heavy precipitation; spring precipitation; growing season length (GSL), the Heat Wave Magnitude Index (HWMI); and the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI)) from the reanalysis data were examined for their consistency to identify changes in the past (data since 1950). For future changes (up to the year 2100), the same parameters were extracted from an ensemble of 12 downscaled regional climate models (RCM) of the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX)-South Asia simulations for low and high emission scenarios (Representative Concentration Pathways 4.5 and 8.5). In the past, the climatic changes were mainly characterized by a mean temperature increase above global level of 1.8 °C from 1950 to 2010; uncertainty with regard to reanalyzed rainfall data limited a thorough analysis of past changes. Climate models projected the temperature trend to accelerate in the future, depending strongly on the global carbon emissions (2006–2050 Representative Concentration Pathways 4.5/8.5: 1.7/2.3 °C; 2006–2099: 2.7/6.4 °C, respectively). Despite the high uncertainty with regard to precipitation projections, it became apparent that the increasing evapotranspiration is likely to exacerbate Afghanistan’s already existing water stress, including a very strong increase of frequency and magnitude of heat waves. Overall, the results show that in addition to the already extensive deficiency in adaptation to current climate conditions, the situation will be aggravated in the future, particularly in regard to water management and agriculture. Thus, the results of this study underline the importance of adequate adaptation to climate change in Afghanistan. This is even truer taking into account that GSL is projected to increase substantially by around 20 days on average until 2050, which might open the opportunity for extended agricultural husbandry or even additional harvests when water resources are properly managed. KW - climate change KW - Afghanistan KW - Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX)-South Asia KW - trend analysis KW - Heat Wave Magnitude Index (HWMI) KW - Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) KW - growing season length (GSL) Y1 - 2017 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-198024 SN - 2225-1154 VL - 5 IS - 2 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Akhundzadah, Noor Ahmad A1 - Soltani, Salim A1 - Aich, Valentin T1 - Impacts of climate change on the water resources of the Kunduz River Basin, Afghanistan JF - Climate N2 - The Kunduz River is one of the main tributaries of the Amu Darya Basin in North Afghanistan. Many communities live in the Kunduz River Basin (KRB), and its water resources have been the basis of their livelihoods for many generations. This study investigates climate change impacts on the KRB catchment. Rare station data are, for the first time, used to analyze systematic trends in temperature, precipitation, and river discharge over the past few decades, while using Mann–Kendall and Theil–Sen trend statistics. The trends show that the hydrology of the basin changed significantly over the last decades. A comparison of landcover data of the river basin from 1992 and 2019 shows significant changes that have additional impact on the basin hydrology, which are used to interpret the trend analysis. There is considerable uncertainty due to the data scarcity and gaps in the data, but all results indicate a strong tendency towards drier conditions. An extreme warming trend, partly above 2 °C since the 1960s in combination with a dramatic precipitation decrease by more than −30% lead to a strong decrease in river discharge. The increasing glacier melt compensates the decreases and leads to an increase in runoff only in the highland parts of the upper catchment. The reduction of water availability and the additional stress on the land leads to a strong increase of barren land and a reduction of vegetation cover. The detected trends and changes in the basin hydrology demand an active management of the already scarce water resources in order to sustain water supply for agriculture and ecosystems in the KRB. KW - climate change KW - Kunduz River Basin KW - trend analysis KW - river discharge KW - landcover changes Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-213199 SN - 2225-1154 VL - 8 IS - 10 ER -