Climate Variability and Change: A Basin Scale Indicator Approach to Understanding the Risk to Water Resources Development and Management

The impact of climate change is likely to have considerable implications for water resource planning, as well as adding to the risks to water infrastructure systems and effecting return on investments. Attention is increasingly being paid to adaptation strategies at the regional and basin level; however, the current paucity of information regarding the potential risk to hydrological systems at this scale presents a substantial challenge for effective water resources planning and investment. This study is intended to help bridge the gap between high-level climate change predictions and the needs of decision-makers.
This study evaluates the effects of climate change on six hydrological indicators across 8,413 basins in World Bank client countries for the full range of 56 General Circulation Model (GCM) Special Report on Emissions Scenario (SRES) combinations evaluated in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4).
To make this information easily accessible to Task Team Leaders and World Bank clients, the results from this study are available on the World Bank Climate Portal, a Web-based interface http://sdwebx.worldbank.org/climateportal/. This report explains how to use the information on the portal.