Environmental Engineering Reference
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by intense summer rain [
33
]. Alternatively, decreases in snow and river-ice cover
reduce the frequency and severity of snowmelt-related and ice-jam floods [
79
-
83
].
To date, relatively few researches have made a quantitative assessment of the
potential impacts of climate change on extreme river flows in Europe. These
studies were applied in some regions by different scientists; UK: Kay et al. [
84
];
Scandinavia: Graham et al. [
85
]; the Benelux countries: Booij [
86
]; and Germany:
Shabalova et al. [
87
]. While some of the investigators realized an increasing trend
in flood frequency and intensity, the other investigators found a decreasing trend.
Application of different climate scenarios as well as hydrological models made
it difficult to compare the results and to make a picture at a European scale. Lehner
et al. [
88
] analyzed the changes in flood frequencies due to global climate change
over Europe, and found northern to north-eastern Europe to be mostly affected by
global climate change, and distinguished an increasing flood risk in those areas.
However, their investigation was based on applying the climate change signal of
two different general circulation models (GCMs), not based on an observation-
based dataset. They also did not take into account a potential increase in climate
variability [
88
].
Additionally, from natural features point of view in the climate systems, the
global climate change is also related to anthropogenic influences [
89
,
90
]. The
effect of human beings on hydrological time series therefore should be of great
attention around the world. The example of increasing temperature and decreasing
precipitation since the mid1960s as a result of deforestation was presented by
Kothyari and Singh [
91
]. Similarly, Meher-Homji [
92
] showed decreasing pre-
cipitation trends because of increasing deforestation. Sharma et al. [
90
] also
showed some evidence of increasing temperature and decreasing precipitation and
discharge particularly during low flow season, as a result of land use change, and
anthropogenic effects.
2.7 Climate Change Scenario for Barcelonnette Area
For Barcelonnette area, there are only a few studies about estimation of climate
change scenarios with focusing on landslide. In one example, influence of climate
change scenario on slope hydrology and landslide frequency is investigated by
Malet et al. [
93
].
They applied climate change scenarios of GCMs and analyzed a future scenario
for the period of 2069-2099 based on observed data between 1969 and 1999. The
results of impacts of climate change based on the A2 scenario are shown in the
Fig.
2.7
. According to Malet et al. [
93
], the main results from this investigation for
Southeast France ere: (a) higher temperatures in summer; (b) more rainy winters;
(c) drier summers; and (d) a decrease in soil water content.
In another example, Buma and Dehn [
94
] investigated also the prediction
of climate change impact on slope stability using downscaled climate data and
slope hydrology/stability model. They applied three scenarios for the period of
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