Climate Change and Water Availability in Data Scarce Region - Advancing the Nexus of Water, Soil and Atmosphere through Remote Sensing and Modelling

Managing hydrological resources under conditions of climate change and extreme climate events remains among the most challenging research tasks in the field of sustainable development. Climate change is projected to increase the vulnerability of water resources, especially in the world’s arid and semi-arid regions. Food security and livelihoods of people in these regions are threatened by the direct impacts of climate change such as the increasing frequency of extreme events and weather variability impacts on the production and productivity of agricultural lands. Modelling a region’s hydrological resources at fine spatial and temporal resolutions is very crucial for the development of sustainable water management policies and appropriate adaptation strategies. Even though it is an essential task, hydrological modelling is challenging in arid areas because of distinctive hydro-climatic variables and the widespread prevalence of ungauged catchments. Improved availability and accuracy of long-time series of gridded climate data obtained from remote sensing satellites and reanalysis systems can complement the limitation of sparse gauge networks in arid regions of the world. Hence the present research project aims to investigate the impact of climate change on hydrological resources in arid regions using remote sensing and modelling techniques.