Joint research project

Impacts of climate change on arid-land streams: a comparative study on Sinai, Egypt

Project leaders
Marina Baldi, Karima Attia
Agreement
EGITTO - ASRT - Academy of Scientific Research and Technology
Call
CNR-ASRT 2016-2017
Department
Earth system science and environmental technologies
Thematic area
Earth system science and environmental technologies
Status of the project
New

Research proposal

Recent studies have shown that the heavy rainfall resulting in flash floods which affected Egypt in ancient times, transforming wadis in fierce streams, are now increasing in intensity and frequency, due to changes in the climate, and in the distribution of extreme events. The events affect not only the coastal areas along the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea, but also arid and semi-arid areas such as Upper Egypt (Luxor, Aswan, Assiut) and the eastern part, i.e. the Sinai peninsula. The episodes, although rare, can be catastrophic in those regions characterized, annually, by a very low total amount of precipitation (far less than 250 mm/year), with exceptional effects on lives, infrastructures, properties and, last, but not least, to the great cultural heritage of the Country.
On the other hand, flash floods caused by heavy rainfall events in Sinai and southern/southeastern Egypt represent a potential source for non-conventional fresh water resources: if successfully harvested, rainfall during flash floods can increase Egypt's limited water resources with an average annual amount of up to 1 billion m3. Flash flood water, which usually flows out into the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba in Egypt, can be used to supply a non-negligible component of water demands, or to recharge shallow groundwater aquifers. Harvested rainfall can also be the main water source for rainfall-fed agriculture.
One effective way to mitigate flash flood risk lies in the study of the future impact of climate change on the occurrence of flash floods, and recently hydrologists have employed rainfall-runoff models to predict the effects of future changes in land use and climate on catchments response to rainfall, mainly focusing on extreme events.
This project will allow to increase the knowledge about the impact of climate change on the sequence and severity of flash floods, which in turn will affect the water availability. Results will be used to support the decision-maker to choose between different types of protections based on the different scenarios derived from the changes of rainfall characteristics (amount, times of occurrence, frequency) in the study area. In addition, results of the project will contribute to proceed a step forward a sustainable development of the Sinai regarding the availability and management of water resources.
More in details, the main purpose of the project is to provide the Water Resources Research Institute (WRRI) with state of the art climate change information over Sinai region assembling a detailed database of the episodes for that region, to analyse possible driving mechanisms, and assess the impact of climate change on the water resources. This will enable scientists also to better understand the catchments response to rainfall, mainly to extreme events, in the Sinai.
The overall approach is to adapt and run, for selected scenarios, a Regional Climate Model for the Sinai region. From the results, climate change information will be extracted taking into account regional variations, possibly down to the catchment level, at both intra-annual and long term time scale.
In parallel a systematic analysis of the uncertainties associated with climate change predictions will be carried on and, once the Delta-change factors are derived, they might be applied to any hydrological modelling tool for impact assessment purposes.
The project objectives are addressed through four key activities, accompanied by an appropriate capacity building:
Activity 1: Assembly a Climate Information Database
In this activity the available observed climate data for the occurrence of events will be collected in order to evaluate the baseline period in the climate change scenarios. Due to the lack of observed data, it is necessary to look for a reliable or robust reference data, such as rainfall estimation products available on the Internet or reanalysis data.
As a first step, the database assembled by the Italian team during a recent project will be used and updated and results of the analysis used as the framework of reference.
Activity 2: Developing or adapting a Regional Climate Model for the Sinai region.
Climate change scenarios available on the MENA CORDEX domain, covering Mediterranean and north Africa will be downscaled appropriately in order to reach resolution 5km X 5km.
Activity 3: Developing a suitable Bias Correction Method in order to correct the bias of the RCM results.
Investigation on the possible physical sources of bias in the RCM output, and selection of the suitable method to correct the bias. The activity include:
- selection of geophysical variables to be analysed,
- analysis of available dataset of observations for each geophysical variable,
- definition of variable dependent comparison method(s) (OR criteria) and metrics
- interpretation of the results
Activity 4: Running the Regional Climate Model for selected scenarios
An high resolution (5kmX5km) RCM will be selected, in order to identify the modification of local climate induced by the interaction between changes in the CORDEX data pattern of the ocean and the atmosphere and the Sinai regional features (orography, land-use, vegetation etc)

During the project there will be also the possibility to plan training activities for specific capacity building, and in order to fulfill this requirement, some training (Activity 5) will be planned on:
5.1 Training on dealing with climate data (software tools, analysis of extremes methodologies, etc)
5.2 Training on satellite remote sensing for climate products - Training on the bias corrected methods.
5.3 Training on RCM
Short term courses will be held by the WMO-Regional Training Centre operated by the Italian Partner. Training material will be developed and made freely available on the Italian CNR Moodle platform.
Joint meetings will take place in both Countries, technical meetings will be online (webex), short term visit of Egyptian scientist in Italy is planned.

Research goals

The main objective is to increase the knowledge about the impact of climate change on the sequence and severity of flash floods, which in turn will affect the water availability. Results will be used to support the decision-maker to choose between different types of protections based on the different scenarios derived from the changes of rainfall characteristics in a arid/semi-arid region. In addition, results of the project will contribute to proceed a step forward a sustainable development of the Sinai regarding the availability and management of water resources.

The key objectives, which will be addressed through 4 activities, are:
- To provide the WRRI with state of the art climate change information over Sinai region
- To establish a climatic database of extreme rainfall events in the region and explore their driving mechanisms through literature review starting from the results of recent studies carried on in Upper Egypt by the Italian Partner
- To assess the large scale uncertainties associated with climate change projections over Sinai
- To prepare output from the RCM with high resolution in order to use these results to assess the impact of climate change on the water resources in Sinai.
- Capacity building on
a) data collection and analysis (software tools, analysis of extremes methodologies, etc)
b) Training on satellite remote sensing for climate products
c) Training on the bias corrected methods.

Last update: 28/03/2024