Hydrological response to climate change in Baro basin, Ethiopia, using representative concentration pathway scenarios

Abstract Droughts and floods are common in the Baro basin and climate change may exacerbate them. This study aimed to investigate the hydrological response to climate change’s impact in the Baro River basin. Four climate models namely, Hadley Centre Global Environmental Model, version 2 (HadGEM2-ES), Max Planck Institute Earth System Model—Low Resolution (MPI-ESM-LR), Coupled Model Version 5, Medium Resolution (CM5A-MR) and European Community Earth System Model (EC-Earth) dynamically downscaled outputs were obtained from Africa coordinated regional downscaling experiment program. The four climate models were evaluated using a suite of statistical measures such as bias, Root Mean Squared Error, and Coefficient of Variation. The bias of the simulated rainfall varies between − 4.20% and − 25.39% suggesting underestimation. The performance of the models differs subject to the performance measures used for evaluation. Before being used in the climate impact analysis, the climate model data was heavily skewed and needed correction. In terms of bias, HadGEM2-ES performed the worst while EC-Earth performed the best. MPI-ESM-LR was the worst performer in terms of RMSE and CM5A-MR was the best. Changes in the hydrological response to climate change were compared to the baseline scenario (1971–2000) under the Representative Concentration Pathway Scenarios (RCP 4.5) for the medium term (2041–2070). The GCM predictions for the RCP 4.5 scenarios suggested that, in the medium period (2041–2070) the maximum temperature in the Baro River basin will probably rise by 2.1 °C for MPI-ESM-LR and 2.49 °C for CM5A-MR, while the minimum temperature would likely climb by 1.7 °C to EC-Earth and 2.8 °C for HadGEM2-ES. Annual rainfall is expected to fall by 7.02% for CM5A-MR and 17.01% for HadGEM2-ES, while annual evapotranspiration potential is likely to rise. Except from March to May CM5A-MR consistently generated the greatest amount of streamflow change, while MPI-ESM-LR consistently generated the highest magnitude of streamflow change. The annual streamflow reduction is consistent with the annual precipitation reduction and increased annual potential evapotranspiration. Generally, climate change is predicted to have a significant impact on the hydrological response in the Baro River basin under the RCP 4.5 scenario.