Assessment of Climate Change Impact on Surface Water Resources of the Karun Basin and Hydropower Generation at Shahid Abbaspour Dam under RCP Scenarios

Mozaffari, Gholam Ali; Behzadi Karimi, Hossein; Mohammadi Ravari, Forough

doi:10.22111/jneh.2025.50099.2076

Assessment of Climate Change Impact on Surface Water Resources of the Karun Basin and Hydropower Generation at Shahid Abbaspour Dam under RCP Scenarios

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

¹ Professor of Climatology, Yazd University, Yazd, Iran

² PhD in Hydrology, Yazd University, Yazd, Iran

³ PhD student in Climatology, Yazd University, Yazd, Iran

10.22111/jneh.2025.50099.2076

Abstract

Global warming, caused by the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations in recent decades, has led to significant changes in climatic parameters, which can impact surface water resources and, consequently, hydropower production. The Karun basin, as one of the most important sources of water supply and hydropower generation in the country, plays a crucial role due to its large reservoir dams. This study evaluates the impact of climate change on the surface water resources of the Karun basin and hydropower generation at the Shahid Abbaspour Dam under future scenarios of RCP emissions. For this purpose, an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) model was used to simulate and predict hydro-climatic data and hydropower generation. The simulation results indicate that, in future periods, the annual hydropower production will vary between a 2.5% increase and a 22.3% decrease compared to the baseline period. Furthermore, under the optimistic scenario (RCP2.6), the changes in hydropower energy show a non-significant increase, while under the pessimistic scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5), a significant decrease in energy production is confirmed. These results suggest that climate change could have considerable negative effects on surface water resources and hydropower production in the future, highlighting the need for water resource management and long-term planning.

Keywords

Main Subjects

Climate-Change

References

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