Assessment of global warming impacts on water resources and ecology of a river basin in Japan

Global warming may cause serious problems in the world. However, the influence of water-related factors, such as water resources and basin ecology, due to global warming has not been comprehensively investigated. In this study, a distributed hydrological and environmental model is applied to assess the impacts of global warming on water resources and ecology of the Nagara River in Japan. With GCM outputs for the two periods, 1979 to 2000 and 2079 to 2100, the model simulation mainly reveals four aspects of the influences of global warming: (i) precipitation and streamflow discharge increase in summer; (ii) air temperature and water temperature rise; (iii) fish habitats are improved, except in summer; and (iv) the boundaries of the crop and vegetation move to higher elevations.