Investigating the effect of climate change on temperature, rainfall, and intensity-duration-frequency curves in dry areas (case study: Kashan Watershed)

Introduction Analysis of the spatial and temporal trends of precipitation is pertinent for the future sustainable management of water resources. Urbanization and climate change affected local rainfall and intensity. As rainfall characteristics are often used to design urban drainage systems, so watershed modeling, and estimate of the flood properties, updating and reviewing rainfall characteristics is necessary. The Intensity-Duration-Frequency (IDF) curves are a suitable tool to estimate the threshold values of precipitation in different return periods. IDF curves should be prepared based on the long-term rainfall statistics in each region and can change under the influence of climate change. These curves which indicate the frequency and maximum intensity of annual rainfall in the different return periods are suitable tools for planning and managing the water resources. IDF curves are broadly used for different purposes, such as the design of flood control and diversion structures in the cities. The main purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of climate change on temperature, precipitation, and IDF curves in the different return periods in an arid environment.   Materials and Methods In this research, the effect of climate change on IDF curves was investigated in Kashan City as a dry region. Kashan city with an area of 9647 km2 is located in the northern part of the Isfahan Province. In this study, RCP8.5, RCP4.5, and RCP2.6 scenarios (which are introduced as optimistic, intermediate, and pessimistic scenarios) reported in the fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), were used to predict the impacts of climate change on temperature and precipitation changes. Then, IDF curves were calculated evaluated, and compared for the basic (1993-2017) and future periods (2011-2070). To examine the impact of climate change on the rainfall intensity patterns, it is necessary to extract IDF curves in different climate conditions. Bell's method is a usual method for extraction of the IDF curves, which was promoted by Gharehman-Abkhezr in Iran. In this study, the latest promoted relationships developed were for the desert and southern regions (e.g;Nizar-Salfachgan, Kuhpayeh, Herat, and Jiroft basins in the central Provinces, Qom, Isfahan, Kerman, and Yazd) have been presented and used to extract IDF curves. To investigate the effects of climate change on IDF curves, first, the base period curves were extracted via rainfall data measured at the Kashan synoptic station. Then, using the new climate scenarios (RCP8.5, RCP4.5, and RCP2.6) and the output data of the LARS exponential microscale model, the IDF curves were extracted for different climate scenarios in the future (2011-2030), (2031-2050), and (2051-2070). Finally, the results of these curves were compared with the base period.   Results and Discussion According to the results, for the base period, the precipitation and temperature data were predicated with an acceptable accuracy by the LARS model. The accuracy of the model has been higher in estimating the minimum and maximum temperature. the Nash and explanation coefficients for the maximum and minimum temperatures were 0.99 and 0.99, respectively. While, the explanatory and Nash coefficients for precipitation data were 0.95 and 0.93, respectively. Based on the results, the rainfall intensity will have fewer changes compared to the base period for long-term duration rainfall compared to short-duration rainfall (less than four hr. The maximum changes are related to rainfalls with a duration of less than one hour, whereas the minimum changes are predicted for 24- hr rainfalls. For all studied scenarios, a significant difference (P<0.05) was predicted between the average rainfall intensity of 0.17 to 24 hr in the region. As in the two-year return period and under the 2.6 scenario, rainfall intensity was increased from 10.75 to 30.54 mm hr-1 for the duration time of 0.17 hr.   Conclusion An increase in air temperature, decrease in rainfall, change in the rainfall pattern, decrease in river discharge, and increase in sudden floods, followed by an increase in soil erosion, and a decrease in the amount of agricultural products are the results of climate change. Therefore, the long-term analysis and monitoring of climatic conditions can be very effective for crisis management caused by climate changes such as floods and droughts. Based on the results, the effect of climate change on the intensity of short-term rainfall is greater than long-term duration rainfall, as the intensity of short-term rainfall will increase more than long-term rainfalls.