Resource information
The impact of climate change is likely
to have considerable implications for water resource
planning, as well as adding to the risks to water
infrastructure systems and effecting return on investments.
Attention is increasingly being paid to adaptation
strategies at the regional and basin level; however, the
current paucity of information regarding the potential risk
to hydrological systems at this scale presents a substantial
challenge for effective water resources planning and
investment. This study is intended to help bridge the gap
between high-level climate change predictions and the needs
of decision-makers, including World Bank Task Team Leaders,
government agencies, investors, and national economic
development planners, whose programs and investments will be
affected by basin- and regional-level impacts of climate
change on water resources and related infrastructures. This
study evaluates the effects of climate change on six
hydrological indicators across 8,413 basins in World Bank
client countries. These indicators, mean annual runoff
(MAR), basin yield, annual high flow, annual low flow,
groundwater (base-flow), and reference crop water deficit,
were chosen based on their relevance to the wide range of
water resource development projects planned for the future.
To generate a robust, high-resolution understanding of
possible risk, this analysis examines relative changes in
all variables from the historical baseline (1961 to 1999) to
the 2030s and 2050s for the full range of 56 General
Circulation Model (GCM) Special Report on Emissions Scenario
(SRES) combinations evaluated in the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4).
