Abstract

Evapotranspiration is a key element in designing and operating agricultural hydraulic structures. The profound effect of climate change to local agro-hydrological systems makes it inevitable to study the potential variability in evapotranspiration rate in order to develop policies on future agricultural water management as well as to evaluate changes in agricultural environment. The APEX-Paddy model was used to simulate local evapotranspiration responses to climate change scenarios. Nine Global Climate Models(GCMs) downscaled using a non-parametric quantile mapping method and a Multi?Model Ensemble method(MME) were used for an uncertainty analysis in the climate scenarios. Results indicate that APEX-Paddy and the downscaled 9 GCMs reproduce evapotranspiration accurately for historical period(1976~2005). For future periods, simulated evapotranspiration rate under the RCP 4.5 scenario showed increasing trends by -1.31%, 2.21% and 4.32% for 2025s(2011~2040), 2055s(2041~2070) and 2085s(2071~2100), respectively, compared with historical(441.6 mm). Similar trends were found under the RCP 8.5 scenario with the rates of increase by 0.00%, 4.67%, and 7.41% for the near?term, mid?term, and long?term periods. Monthly evapotranspiration was predicted to be the highest in August, July was the month having a strong upward trend while. September and October were the months showing downward trends in evapotranspiration are mainly resulted from the shortening of the growth period of paddy rice due to temperature increase and stomatal closer as ambient $CO_2$ concentration increases in the future.

Keywords

• Climate Change;
• GCMs;
• Uncertainty;
• Paddy Rice;
• APEX?Paddy Model