Assessing the impacts of climate change on hydrological processes in the upper Genale River basin, Ethiopia

The aim of this research is to assess the impact of future climate change on hydrological parameters (e.g., precipitation and temperature) in Ethiopia’s upper Genale River basin. Future climate scenarios for the 2021–2050 and 2051–2080 periods were developed from four different GCM–RCM combinations of CORDEX-Africa projections using the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5). These climate models were bias corrected and used as input to the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model. During the 2030s (2021–2050) and 2060s (2051–2080), under the two RCPs, the projected precipitation in the annual and seasonal periods tends to decrease while temperatures increase. The simulated result revealed a significant change in hydrological components (e.g., During the 2060s), under the RCP4.5 scenario, CNRM-CM5 climate model runoff, ground water flow, and total water yield increased by 24.47