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GEOLINKS International Conference 2020, Book 1

AIR POLLUTION AND CLIMATE CHANGE

CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS ON ULZA DAM LIFESPAN

PhD Student Klodian Zaimi, Assoc. Prof. Fatos Hoxhaj, Sergio Fattorelli, Francesca Ramazzina

ABSTRACT

Ulza Dam is one of the oldest hydropower infrastructures in Albania. The water capacity of the reservoir has been reduced because of the accumulation of the sediments coming from Mat River. The bathymetric measurements and river sediment transport are used for quantifying the water storage change up to nowadays. Analyzing the future climate change impact in the sediment transport from the river is very important for understanding the Ulza Dam lifespan. In order to analyze the sediment regime in the future, the climate change projection from the EURO-CORDEX has been downscaled for Mat River catchment and used as input for the HEC-HMS hydrological model considering also the erosion and sediment module. The hydrological model was also calibrated with the MUSLE parameters, and it reproduces the average value of the total sediment transport. The analysis of climate change impact on erosion and sediment transported at the reservoirs was done considering the mean annual load for the different 30-year simulated periods related to values from the historical period 1981-2010. Considering the impacts of climate change, the mean annual sediment siltation could increase for RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios. Over this hypothesis, the remaining lifespan can be reduced drastically in both scenarios. Different land-use scenarios were analyzed to evaluate the impact of erosion and, because the current land use scenario doesn’t produce any impact on the hydrological process, but only effects at a small scale, two hypothetical scenarios were defined at large scale and applied for Mat River catchment. Extensive management of land use and reforestation produce a positive effect on the hydrological process and reducing the erosion rate. The change of land use significantly counteracts the negative effects of climate change by 15% and a 24% reduction in the case of these land-use scenarios.

 

KEYWORDS

Climate change, hydrological model, sediments, land-use, catchment

REFERENCE
GEOLINKS International Conference, Conference Proceedings, ISSN 2603-5472, ISBN 978-619-7495-07-2, CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS ON ULZA DAM LIFESPAN, 37-45 pp, DOI paper 10.32008/GEOLINKS2020/B1/V2/03
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