Trends of Climate Change in Saudi Arabia: Implications on Water Resources

Climate change is an important factor for sustainable water resource management in the arid and semi-arid countries. In this study, future trends of temperature and rainfall were assessed for several regions in Saudi Arabia. The linear and Mann-Kendall analyses showed an increase of temperature in all regions and decrease of rainfall in many regions. Following trend analysis, the outputs of the NCAR Community Climate System Model were obtained for three emission scenarios (high: representative concentration pathways RCP8.5; high medium: RCP6; and low: RCP2.6) for the assessment periods of 2025-2044, 2045-2064 and 2065-2084 respectively, and compared with the average values from the reference period (1986-2005). In all emission scenarios, temperature showed an increase from 1986 to 2005 in all regions. For RCP8.5, increase of temperature are in the ranges of 0.8-1.6 degrees C, 0.9-2.7 degrees C and 0.7-4.1 degrees C during 2025-2044, 2045-2064 and 2065-2084 respectively. However, rainfall showed variable patterns with respect to emission scenarios and assessment periods. In most regions, the RCP6 showed decrease in rainfall from the reference period while the RCP8.5 and RCP2.6 showed variable patterns. The increase of temperature and variable pattern of rainfall may increase uncertainty in developing sustainable water resource management strategies.