Modelling of hydrological extremes and rice irrigation optimization for decision support in Central Vietnam

Central Vietnam is characterized by a complex climatology, which in combination with the sparse hydrometeorological observation network, creates a challenge in the quantification of projected hydrological extremes under a changing climate. In the region, farmers report increasing damages on agriculture caused by extreme floods and drought conditions. Particularly during the summer-autumn rice season, water is often insufficient to irrigate the entire rice production areas, and thus significantly affecting rice productivity. Therefore, scientifically sound information on the expected future hydrological extremes as well as water-efficient agricultural strategies are urgently required for sustainable water resources management. In this thesis a complex hydrometeorological modelling chain is employed to investigate the impact of climate change on future hydrological extremes in the Vu Gia - Thu Bon (VGTB) river basin, Central Vietnam. The modelling chain consists of six Global Circulation Models (GCMs) (CCAM, CCSM, ECHAM3, ECHAM5, HadCM3Qs, and MRI), six Regional Climate Models (RCMs) (CCAM, MM5, RegCM, REMO, HadRM3P and MRI), six bias correction (BC) approaches (linear scaling, local intensity scaling, power law transform (monthly), empirical and gamma quantile mapping, and power law transform), the fully distributed hydrological Water Flow and Balance Simulation Model (WaSiM) which was calibrated for the VGTB basin using two different calibration approaches, and extreme values analysis. The nonlinear parameter estimation tool PEST, which is based on the Gauss-Marquardt-Levenberg method, was combined with the distributed hydrological model WaSiM. Confidence bounds for all estimated parameters of the WaSiM model were developed based on a covariance analysis. A reasonable quality of fit between modelled and observed runoffs was achieved showing the reasonable performance of the WaSiM model in this region. Both bias corrected and raw RCM data are used as input for the WaSiM to simulate flows for the VGTB basin. To derive high ow and low ow frequency curves for the control (baseline) period (1980-1999) and the future periods 2011-2030, 2031-2050, and 2080-2099, the generalized extreme value (GEV) distribution is fitted to the annual maxima/minima of the simulated continuous discharge series. Permutation tests are developed and applied to the observed discharge series (1980-1999) to quantify the uncertainties related to the relatively small size to estimate the GEV distribution. Results show that the GEV fits based on sample size of n = 20 can partially be considered as robust. Due to limitations in the performance of the BC methods, the delta change approach was applied to facilitate extreme ow analysis as required for hydrological decision support. The results exhibit a remarkable variation among the different climate scenarios. As indicated by the majority of the discharge projections, a tendency towards increased high flows and decreased low flows is concluded. The results highlight challenges in using current GCM/RCMs in combination with state-of-the-art BC methods for local impact studies on both high and low flows. A second central objective of this PhD dissertation was the development and application of an integrated hydrological-irrigation modelling system to optimize irrigation strategies for a typical rice irrigation system in Central Vietnam. The modelling system comprises WaSiM to simulate the inflow to a reservoir and an irrigation model, which optimizes the rice irrigation technology, i.e. Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD) or Continuous Flooding (CF), the rice irrigation area and the irrigation scheduling under given water constraints. Irrigation strategies are derived based on different initial water levels in the reservoir at the beginning of the cropping season as well as different maximum water releases. The simulation results show that the initial level of water in the reservoir is crucial: water levels of less than 90% do not provide sufficient water to irrigate the entire cropping area, whereas a level of 70% restricts the cropping area to 75% under current design maximum outflow of 0.3 m3/s. AWD is able to reduce the water irrigation input, ranging from 4% to 10% and reduce the number of irrigation events compared to CF. The adoption of AWD, which has been not popular in Central Vietnam therefore, has the potential to save more water and may help to increase the profit of the farmers. However, the benefits of AWD can only be achieved after significant investment in the canal system and the reservoir outlet. The impact of the different computing environments on the solutions of the integrated model is estimated, since the robustness of the optimization results(performance variability) is crucial for decision support. Only limited performance variability due to the computing environment is finally found, giving confidence in the robustness of the model for decision support. Prior to the application and the transfer of the model to similar irrigation schemes in other regions, the model must be further validated by field experiments under various conditions