The Behavior of Inflow to the Seimareh Dam in the Face of Climate Change Impacts

The importance of environment protection has caused different countries benefit from renewable and clean sources to generate electricity. This has led to the development of hydropower plants around the world. Also, there are different hydroelectric projects in Iran that the Seimareh Dam & Hydropower Plant is amongst them. Since climate change can alter the hydrologic conditions of different areas and the performance of hydraulic structures, this study aims to examine the impacts of this phenomenon on the inflow to the Seimareh Dam.

Climate conditions in the future period (2040 to 2069) are predicted for the study area using HadCM3 model under A2 and B2 scenarios as well as CanESM2 model under RCP2.6, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios by the Statistical DownScaling Method (SDSM model). Also, this study uses HEC-HMS hydrologic model to simulate river flow.

The results of the present study show that temperature of the area increases in the future period to different scenarios, in such a way that the highest amount of increase for maximum and minimum temperature in the future period has been predicted for RCP8.5 respectively about 1.2 and 1.3 Centigrade. It is predicted that the mean annual amount of rainfall will reduce as well. Also, the assessment of simulated river flow shows that inflow to the Seimareh Dam will decrease about 5.2 to 13.4 percent in the future period.

The results of the present study show the importance and necessity of considering the climate change impacts in designing important hydraulic structures such as dams and hydropower plants.