Chapter 2
Regional Assessment of Impacts of Climate
Change: A Statistical Downscaling
Approach
Nagraj S. Patil and Rajashekhar S. Laddimath
Abstract Water resource sectors are impacted by industrialization, urbanization,
and climate change, making these vital resources more vulnerable and posing
substantial challenges to water resources planners. Climate change significantly
impacts agricultural production, and water will be a major constraint in the future
for food production. Developing countries such as India are more vulnerable, and the
ramification of climate change on rain-fed agriculture areas has been affecting the
rural population because of their great dependency on agriculture for their livelihood. For understanding how the changes in cardinal and sensitive climate variables
such as temperature and precipitation will affect natural resources, and for developing management policies for mitigation and adaption strategies, regional-scale
assessments are crucial. This chapter showcases regional assessment of the impacts
of climate change by the statistical downscaling technique, the Change Factor
method, using the CMIP-5 General Circulation Model data in India with a case
study in Bhima sub-basin. Spatial cross-correlation of maximum temperature and
precipitation across the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) gauge grids was
captured adequately, and the downscaling satisfactorily captured the crosscorrelation between rainfall grids of Bhima sub-basin. Future projections reports,
average daily maximum temperature and rainfall are likely to increase in response to
climate change under different representative concentration pathway (RCP) scenarios, with maximum changes in RCP 8.5.
Keywords Climate change · General Circulation Model · Regional assessment ·
Change Factor Method · Bhima sub-basin
N. S. Patil (*)
Department of Civil Engineering, Center for P.G. Studies, Visvesvarayya Technological
University, Belagavi, Karnataka, India
e-mail: nspatil@vtu.ac.in
R. S. Laddimath
School of Civil Engineering, REVA University, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
Regional Research Center, Visvesvarayya Technological University, Belagavi, India
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
M. N. Islam, A. van Amstel (eds.), India: Climate Change Impacts, Mitigation
and Adaptation in Developing Countries, Springer Climate,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67865-4_2
17
Regional Assessment of Impacts of Climate
Change: A Statistical Downscaling
Approach
Nagraj S. Patil and Rajashekhar S. Laddimath
Abstract Water resource sectors are impacted by industrialization, urbanization,
and climate change, making these vital resources more vulnerable and posing
substantial challenges to water resources planners. Climate change significantly
impacts agricultural production, and water will be a major constraint in the future
for food production. Developing countries such as India are more vulnerable, and the
ramification of climate change on rain-fed agriculture areas has been affecting the
rural population because of their great dependency on agriculture for their livelihood. For understanding how the changes in cardinal and sensitive climate variables
such as temperature and precipitation will affect natural resources, and for developing management policies for mitigation and adaption strategies, regional-scale
assessments are crucial. This chapter showcases regional assessment of the impacts
of climate change by the statistical downscaling technique, the Change Factor
method, using the CMIP-5 General Circulation Model data in India with a case
study in Bhima sub-basin. Spatial cross-correlation of maximum temperature and
precipitation across the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) gauge grids was
captured adequately, and the downscaling satisfactorily captured the crosscorrelation between rainfall grids of Bhima sub-basin. Future projections reports,
average daily maximum temperature and rainfall are likely to increase in response to
climate change under different representative concentration pathway (RCP) scenarios, with maximum changes in RCP 8.5.
Keywords Climate change · General Circulation Model · Regional assessment ·
Change Factor Method · Bhima sub-basin
N. S. Patil (*)
Department of Civil Engineering, Center for P.G. Studies, Visvesvarayya Technological
University, Belagavi, Karnataka, India
e-mail: nspatil@vtu.ac.in
R. S. Laddimath
School of Civil Engineering, REVA University, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
Regional Research Center, Visvesvarayya Technological University, Belagavi, India
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
M. N. Islam, A. van Amstel (eds.), India: Climate Change Impacts, Mitigation
and Adaptation in Developing Countries, Springer Climate,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67865-4_2
17