Assessment of the impact of climate change and economic development on the water balance of Namtien reservoir, Sayaboury province, Laos

Abstract

    In recent years, the climate phenomenon happening trend growing extremism both in terms of the frequency, intensity and time triggers catastrophic losses in terms of both people and property. At present, many domestic and foreign research studies on climate change (CC) impacts on the water resources field. Results of scientists' studies showed that climate change will seriously impact productivity, livelihoods and the environment on a global scale, especially on a large flood phenomena in terms of intensity, drought on a violently in a long time. In Laos, over 50-60 years, the climate happened extremely.      Specifically, increasing rainfall during the flood season and decreasing in the dry season with the annualy average temperature has increased by about 0,5-0,80C. El Nino, La Nina phenomenon-is more and more powerful impact to Laos. The climate change actually did for the disasters, particularly typhoons, flooding, drought intensified.        According to calculations, the average temperature in Laos could increase to 3,00C by 2100. The climate change is one of the new research problems in Laos both in methodology as well as the research tool due to the complexity of global scale, level and the object affected. Therefore, researching on the effects of climate change and economic development to meet the water resources of NamTien reservoir, Sayaboury, Laos is urgently needed. This paper introduces the results and the impact of climate change on water demand and technical analysis of the plant and the human activities in the irrigation system and the changes of flow to the reservoir. The study results showed that water demand will increase significantly, along with the decrease in the flow so the water shortage of reservoir is very large. Specifically, domestic demand increased by 8,6% in 2030 compared to the period 1980 to 1999, and 15,0% in 2050, corresponding to the B2 scenario. Along with the increase of water demand and reduced flows in the dry season have led to a rapid rise in water shortages in future with the shortage of water systems increased by 30,4% in 2030 and 40,5% in 2050.