Impacts of Climate Change on Catchment Runoff for the Paute River Basin in the Southern Ecuadorian Andes

The objective of this research is the evaluation of climate change scena rios and the impact it will have in water quantity and quality parameter s for future analysis actions of mitigation and adaptation. The evaluation will be performed at different spatial and temporal resol ution with the development of a calibrated and validated Lumped Co nceptual Hydrologic Model The research consist in three workpackages: 1. Model Development: Consistencies between a detailed local scale model and a regional scale conceptual model. <UL> Research activities will consist in conducting the assessment of a regio nal scale model VHM (Generalized lumped conceptual and parsimonious mode l structure-identification and calibration, according to the Dutch abbre viation), reported as a draft publication of Dr. Prf. Patrick Willems, c oncerned in the analysis of hydrological processes and water quality imp rovement of the model</UL> a) Improvement and advance of the existing model of Dr. Rolando Celleri, for the basin upstream of River Tomebamba in Monay 1260 km2 (meso-scale riverbasin) b) Same activity at subbasin scale level: Matadero basin 300 km2 and Llaviuco Basin 52 km2), and analysis of regio nal differences (in catchment properties and model parameters) 2 Scenario Development:<UL> Analysis of trends and oscillations in climatic and hydrologic series</UL> a) Analysis of rainfall and climatic series of long term weather station s: Analysis of rainfall series; Analysis of temperature and/or ETo series; Analysis of flow series of long term f low gauging stations. <UL> The downscaling of the IPCC-SRES for the construction of the future clim ate use will be made of the downscaling of regional climate models, for which assistance will be searched for by INAMHI (Instituto Nacional de M eteorología en Hidrología, Quito-Guayaquil, Ecuador), also experience of the Laboratory of Hydraulics, Katholieque Universiteit Leuven)</UL> a) Assessment and selection of available GCM simulations for rainfall, t emperature, ETo, and other relevant variables b) Development, implementation and evaluation of methodology to do wnscale GCM simulation results c) Consistency check of climate change scenarios with trends ident ified in Activity 2 for rainfall, temperature and ETo series 3 Climate change impact on hydrology: <UL> Hydrologic impact analysis of climate change in the Tomebamba</UL> a) Simulation of climate change scen arios developed in Activity 3 in the regional hydrologic models develope d in Activity 1 b) Statistical evaluation of climate chang e impact results c) Consistency check of climate change sce narios with trends identified in Activity 2 for rainfall, temperat ure and ETo series It is believed that the proposed research in the assessment of local and regional models of water quantity and quality and the effects of climat e change in the southern Ecuador Andes region which is of scientific but also relevant for the socio-economy aspects for the region.status: publishe