Climate change impacts on streamflow at the upper Jordan River

In 2016, Guillaume Thirel was asked to take part in two projects1 funded by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to carry out hydroclimatic modelling in three watersheds in Israel, Jordan and Palestine in the context of climate change.

The three partner consultancies, ACTERRA, TEC Conseil and ARIA Technologies, were responsible for coordinating the project, which brought together Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian climatologists and hydrogeologists. The project led to the production of high-resolution climate projections (25 km and 5 km) for 11 hydroclimatic indices, using dynamic downscaling methods (CORDEX and WRF mesoscale model).

Several visits were organised. The first was to the Israeli Hydrological Service/Israeli Water Authority, in the presence of the representative of the consultancy leading the project, and provided an opportunity to meet a modeller and the person in charge of hydrological forecasting. INRAE’s airGR software package was already in use for this climate change impact study, so it was possible to discuss the proper use of our hydrological models. Next, a visit to the Zarqa catchment area in Jordan provided an opportunity to observe a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) and to talk to the staff about their vision of the impact of climate change on the WWTP.

The next visit was to a landslide that had occurred a month earlier, and then to the flow measurement station used for the project.

Finally, a meeting was organised under the aegis of the UNDP with Jordanian (hydrogeologists and Ministry of Water) and Palestinian representatives and those of the three French consultancy firms. The results of airGR’s modelling of basins in Israel and especially Jordan were presented and very well received. As the aspects of free use + performance + low data requirements struck a chord with the various partners, airGR was distributed and even installed at the end of the meeting.

This work led to the setting up of an online data visualisation portal (Climate Service) and fed into the production of adaptation plans for water resources in the 3 countries.

In 2016, Guillaume Thirel took part in a week-long training course organised by ACTERRA in partnership with Météo France. The training course on hydrological modelling and the use of airGR in the context of climate change and its impact on hydrology was aimed at a delegation of 15 experts from the 3 countries concerned.

Our team’s main work on R² D² , Climaware, Explore 2070 and the 2013 IAHS workshop on the robustness of hydrological models was presented.

In 2017, the HYDRO team’s expertise was called upon to participate in the implementation of robust hydrological modelling on target basins, including the successful use of the airGR software package on two of these basins.

The mission resulted in the publication referenced below with three Israeli co-authors in the “Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies”.