Climatic Change (2017) 141:451–465

DOI 10.1007/s10584-016-1886-8

Multimodel assessment of sensitivity and uncertainty

of evapotranspiration and a proxy for available water
resources under climate change

Vimal Mishra 1 & Rohini Kumar 2 & Harsh L. Shah 1 &

Luis Samaniego 2 & S. Eisner 3 & Tao Yang 4

Received: 25 January 2016 / Accepted: 21 December 2016 / Published online: 3 January 2017
# Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016

Abstract Partitioning of precipitation (P) into actual evapotranspiration (ET) and runoff
affects a proxy for water availability (P-ET) on land surface. ET accounts for more than
60% of global precipitation and affects both water and energy cycles. We study the changes in
precipitation, air temperature, ET, and P-ET in seven large basins under the RCP 2.6 and 8.5
scenarios for the projected future climate. While a majority of studied basins is projected to
experience a warmer and wetter climate, uncertainty in precipitation projections remains large
in comparison to the temperature projections. Due to high uncertainty in ET, uncertainties in
fraction of precipitation that is evaporated (ET/P) and a proxy for available water (P-ET) are
also large under the projected future climate. Our assessment showed that under the RCP 8.5
scenario, global climate models are major contributors to uncertainties in ET (P-ET) simula-
tions in the four (six) basins, while uncertainty due to hydrological models is prevailing or
comparable in the other three (one) basins. The simulated ET is projected to increase under the
warmer and wetter future climates in all the basins and periods under both RCPs. Regarding P-
ET, it is projected to increase in five out of seven basins in the End term (2071–2099) under the
RCP 8.5 scenario. Precipitation elasticity and temperature sensitivity estimated for ET were

This article is part of a Special Issue on BHydrological Model Intercomparison for Climate Impact Assessment^
edited by Valentina Krysanova and Fred Hattermann.
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10584-016-1886-8)
contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

* Vimal Mishra
vmishra@iitgn.ac.in

1
Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India
2
UFZ-Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Leipzig, Germany
3
Center for Environmental Systems Research (CESR), Kassel, Germany
4
State Key Laboratory of Hydrology-Water Resources and Hydraulic Engineering, Center for Global
Change and Water Cycle, Hohai University, Nanjing, China
452 Climatic Change (2017) 141:451–465

found to be positive in all the basins under the RCP 8.5 scenario. In contrast, the temperature
sensitivity estimated for (P-ET) was found to be negative for all the basins under the RCP 8.5
scenario, indicating the role of increased energy availability and limited soil moisture. Our
results highlight the need for improvements in climate and hydrological models with better
representation of soil, vegetation, and cold season processes to reduce uncertainties in the
projected ET and P-ET.

1 Introduction

Evapotranspiration (ET; refers to actual evapotranspiration throughout the manuscript) is a

major component of water and energy cycles that accounts for 60% of global land precipitation
(Oki and Kanae 2006; Teuling et al. 2009). ET increases with increase in temperature,
radiation, and wind speed and with decrease in humidity. Moreover, a decline in precipitation
may indirectly increase ET due to increase in number of days with clear sky, increase in
temperature, and decrease in humidity (Abtew and Melesse 2013). Precipitation (Gerten et al.
2008), aerosol loading (Douville et al. 2013), and wind speed (McVicar et al. 2012) are found
to be major drivers of changes in ET. Zeng et al. (2014), for example, analyzed ET across 95
large basins and found significant positive (linear) trends during the period 1982–2009 with
higher uncertainty in the wet season and in tropical regions. Ukkola and Prentice (2013)
conducted a worldwide analysis of trends in ET and found that the interannual variability of ET
is dominated by precipitation which accounts for roughly 55% of the variation in wet basins
(energy limited) and 95% of the variation in dry basins (water limited).
Global and regional estimates of land surface ET have large uncertainties primarily due to
lack of reference observations (Mueller et al. 2011). For example, Mueller et al. (2011)
reported that the majority of IPCC AR4 models underestimated land ET in India, South
America, Australia, and China. On the other hand, an analysis based on the CMIP5 models
showed a large overestimation in ET in major regions across the world (Mueller and
Seneviratne 2014). Boé and Terray (2008) reported that projected ET in future climate is
strongly linked to the representation of soil moisture and radiative energy in climate models.
Global hydrological cycle is expected to intensify under the projected climate change
(Huntington 2006), which will lead to changes in the water resources availability, frequent
and more intense hydrological extremes (drought and floods), and amplified climate
warming through water vapor feedback. Moreover, in an intensified hydrological cycle,
both precipitation (P) and ET are projected to increase; however, their magnitude and
spatial distribution remain highly uncertain (Douville et al. 2013). Since ET on longer time
scales (annual or longer) is related to the amount of available renewable water (P-ET),
changes in magnitude and variability in ET under the current and projected future climate
may have significant influence on surface water availability (Haddeland et al. 2011;
Hagemann et al. 2013; Gosling and Arnell 2016). For instance, Schewe et al. (2014) using
an ensemble of global hydrological models and climate models showed that under 2°C
warming scenario discharge is projected to increase in northern latitudes and decline in
large parts of north and south America, which may result in water scarcity for about 15%
of the global population. While there may be temporal and regional variabilities in climate
change impacts on water availability, the impacts of climate change are expected to be
more severe in the end of the twenty-first century in dry regions (Pechlivanidis et al. 2016),
which may be due to increased evaporative demands.
Climatic Change (2017) 141:451–465 453

Understanding the sensitivity of ET and P-ET to climate change is important to estimate the
projected changes in surface water availability (Mishra and Lilhare 2016; Shah and Mishra
2016). The impacts of climate change projections on ET and P-ET, however, remain uncertain
in many basins (Mueller et al. 2011; Mueller and Seneviratne 2014). We investigated here the
uncertainty and sensitivity in ET and P-ET using simulations from a combination of well-
calibrated regional hydrological models provided under the framework of the Inter-Sectoral
Impact Model Intercomparison Project (Warszawski et al. 2014) in its second phase (ISI-
MIP2) for the regional water sector (see Krysanova and Hattermann in this Special Issue for
more details). The specific objectives of this study are 1) to evaluate changes in ET and the
proxy of water availability (P-ET) in seven large basins (Ganges, Rhine, Upper-Niger, Upper-
Yellow, Upper-Amazon, Upper-Mississippi, and Blue Nile) under the projected future climate,
2) to evaluate precipitation elasticity and temperature sensitivity of ET and P-ET in the large
basins by the end of the twenty-first century, and 3) to detangle the overall uncertainty in ET
and P-ET projections for seven large basins due to global climate models (GCMs), hydrolog-
ical models (HMs), and their interaction.

2 Data and methods

We performed the analysis for the seven basins based on simulations from three hydrological
models, namely, VIC, mHM, and HYMOD for ET. Precipitation and air temperature are
available for all the basins that are part of the ISI-MIP2 project. The selected seven basins
Upper-Amazon (gauge station Sao Paulo de Olivenca), Blue Nile (Khartoum), Ganges
(Farakka), Upper-Mississippi (Alton), Upper-Niger (Dirè), Rhine (Lobith), and Upper-
Yellow (Tangnaihai) are large basins with drainage areas more than 105 km2. These basins
are located in the regions with diverse climate regimes and have differences in land use/land
cover, soil parameters, and topography. Cropland is the dominant land cover in the Upper-
Mississippi, Ganges, Rhine, and Blue Nile while forest is primary land cover in Upper-
Amazon and Upper-Niger basins. The Upper-Yellow basin is dominated by grassland.
Daily ET simulations were available from the HYMOD, mHM, and VIC hydrological
models. Potential evapotranspiration (PET) is estimated using the Penman-Monteith method in
the VIC model, and using the Hargreaves and Samani method (Hargreaves and Samani 1982)
in the mHM and HYMOD models. The number of soil-layers in the HYMOD, mHM, and VIC
models are 1, 2, and 3, respectively. Further details on characteristics of basins and calibration
and evaluation of the selected hydrological models (along with their process description and
details of input data) can be obtained from Krysanova and Hattermann (2016) in this Special
Issue. At this stage, the simulated ET data were available for only these three regional
hydrological models from the ISI-MIP2 project, though the ET simulations from more HMs
would have been better to characterize uncertainty in future projections.
Hydrological sensitivity and uncertainty of ET were studied using all the three HMs. The
HMs used for the analysis have substantial disparities in the process representation and
complexity (Krysanova and Hattermann (2016). However, they were applied using the same
climate forcing for the historical and future climate obtained from the five GCMs (detailed
below). The WATCH-driven (Weedon et al. 2011) simulations were used for calibration and
evaluation of the hydrological models against observed streamflow.
To estimate projected future changes, the HMs were forced using downscaled and bias
corrected data from five GCMs under four Representative Concentration Pathways scenarios
454 Climatic Change (2017) 141:451–465

(RCPs, 2.6, 4.5, 6.0, and 8.5: see Van Vuuren et al. 2011 for more details) for the period of
1971–2099. The five GCMs are: HadGEM2-ES, MIROC-ESM-CHEM, GFDL-ESM2M,
IPSL-CM5A-LR, and NorESM1-M. The bias corrected and statistically downscaled data on
precipitation, maximum and minimum air temperatures, wind speed, and solar radiation are
available at daily temporal and 0.5° spatial resolutions. The original GCM data were bias
corrected to match the long-term monthly means of the observation based WATCH dataset
during the historical period 1960–1999, while preserving the original trends (see, Hempel et al.
(2013) for more details). The four RCPs scenarios and the five GCMs can cover a range of
uncertainty related to the climate change scenarios and inter-model variation in GCMs (see the
ISI-MIP protocol report on https://www.isimip.org/gettingstarted/).

2.1 Analysis approach

We aggregated daily precipitation, air temperature, and ET, spatially over the considered
basins, and temporally to the monthly time scale corresponding to every GCMs and hydro-
logical model outputs for the two RCP scenarios (2.6 and 8.5). Mean annual air temperature
(T) was estimated using the mean of daily maximum (Tmax) and minimum (Tmin) air
temperatures. The RCP 2.6 scenario represents the most optimistic scenario where it is
assumed that technological development and other measures will help to keep the increase
in the radiative forcing to 2.6 W/m2 by the end of the twenty-first century. On the other hand,
the RCP 8.5 scenario is the most pessimistic one, which is based on 8.5 W/m2 increase in
radiative forcing by the end the century. Therefore, simulations based on these two RCPs can
provide a (extreme) range of the scenario-based uncertainty in ET and a proxy of available
water (P-ET) over the considered seven large basins.
Changes in ET and P-ET for the future periods were estimated against the historic reference
(driven by the GCMs) period of 1981–2010. Changes in precipitation, air temperature, ET, and P-
ET for the projected future climate were estimated for the Near (2011–2040), Mid (2041–2070),
and End (2071–2099) of the twenty-first century (30-year interval). We evaluated changes and
associated uncertainty in hydro-climatic variables for the 30-year periods over the seven basins
that are located in the diverse climatic conditions. Annual time series for each period were
aggregated based on the mean air temperature and annual total precipitation, ET, and P-ET for
each basin, separately. To understand the changes under the projected future climate, annual
anomalies were constructed after removing the mean of the historic reference period (1981–
2010). Moreover, to remove the high frequency variability, the annual time series were smoothed
at a decadal scale (10-year period). Annual anomalies were constructed for each HM and GCM
combination, which provided us 15 runs (5 GCMs and 3 HMs) for ET and P-ET in each basin.
Uncertainty in the projected changes in ET and P-ET due to HMs, GCMs, and their
interaction was evaluated using the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA, Armstrong et al. (2000))
method. ANOVA is a tool for partitioning observed variance into fractions (of variance) due to
contributing factors. The ANOVA method has been widely used for uncertainty estimation in
climate and hydrological models (Yip et al.; 2011; Vetter et al. 2015). Three-way ANOVA was
used to partition observed variances into the sources of contributing factors. The total uncer-
tainty is the variance of the climate change signal in the mean annual ET and P-ET, which was
estimated for the Near, Mid, and End of the twenty-first century separately. Total sum of squares
was estimated using ANOVA, which was then divided into main effects (due to HMs and
GCMs) and their interactions as described in Vetter et al. (2015). Uncertainty assessment of ET
and P-ET under the projected future climate was done separately for RCP 2.6 and RCP 8.5.
Climatic Change (2017) 141:451–465 455

We estimated precipitation (P) elasticity and temperature (T) sensitivity of ET and P-ET under
the projected future climate as described in Vano et al. (2012). The P elasticity of ET (or P-ET) is
percentage change in mean annual ET (or P-ET) under the projected climate with respect to the
reference period divided by the fractional change in P (1%). Similarly, the T sensitivity of ET (or
P-ET) can be defined as percentage change in mean annual ET (or P-ET) due to change in T. We
recognize that changes in P and T may be dependent on each other, but we adopted this simplified
approach here to provide first order estimates of changes in ET and P-ET due to specified changes
in individual climatic factor (keeping other components constant).
Changes in P (%) and T (°C) were estimated separately for each basin using the pairs of
30 years of datasets starting from 2010 (2010–2039, 2011–2040, 2012–2041, and so on to
2071–2099) from the 15 model combinations (3 HMs and 5 GCMs). This resulted in total 62
pairs of changes in ET and P-ET, as well as, of P and T. We then fit a liner model for each run
to estimate the 30-year P elasticity and T sensitivity of ET and P-ET. Following Tang and
Lettenmaier (2012), the Gauss-Jordan regression method (Anderson and Legendre 1999) was
used to construct equations of the form dET/ET = β dP/P+ α dT for each run obtained from the
combinations of GCM and HM. Here, dET/ET, dP/P, and dT are the relative change in ET, P,
and T change, respectively. Finally, the medians of the multimodel ensemble P elasticity (β)
and T sensitivity (α) of all the runs are reported in this study. Further details on the procedure
can be found in Tang and Lettenmaier (2012).

3 Results

3.1 Changes in precipitation and air temperature

The basin averaged multi-model ensemble mean annual precipitation and temperature anom-
alies were estimated for the seven basins under RCP 8.5 (Fig. 1) and RCP 2.6 (Figure S1)
scenarios. Based on the multimodel ensemble mean annual precipitation estimated for the
historic reference period (1981–2010), the Upper-Yellow basin receives the lowest precipita-
tion (510.7 mm), while Upper-Amazon receives the highest (2078.2 mm) among the seven
selected basins (Table S1). The projected changes in precipitation varied with the emission
scenarios (i.e., RCP 2.6 and 8.5), period (Near, Mid, and End), and geographical location of
the basins (Table S1, Fig. 1 and S1).
Large uncertainty in precipitation projections (based on standard deviation of 5 GCMs)
was found for the Ganges, Blue Nile, and Upper-Niger basins under both RCP scenarios.
In most of the analyzed basins, precipitation is projected to increase under both RCP
scenarios (Table S1, Fig. 1 and Figure S1). Furthermore, the projected increase in mean
annual precipitation over the Ganges (18.3 ± 15.0%, here 15.0 refers to intermodel vari-
ation given as standard deviation), Blue Nile (18.6 ± 31.5%), Upper-Amazon (10.9 ± 9.4%),
and Upper-Yellow (20.8 ± 9.8%) basins was noted to be higher than that over the other
three basins (Upper-Mississippi, Upper-Niger, and Rhine) at the end of the twenty-first
century under the RCP 8.5 scenario. The uncertainty in the precipitation projections is
relatively higher for the End term in comparison to the Near and Mid terms of the
twenty-first century. It is projected that all the seven basins will receive an increased
precipitation (1.2–20.8%) in the End term climate under the RCP 8.5 scenario (Table S1).
The lowest projected increase (1.2 ± 6.3%) in precipitation was found over the Rhine
basin under the RCP 8.5 scenario in the End term climate.
 456 Climatic Change (2017) 141:451–465

RCP 8.5 RCP 8.5

60 8
(a) Upper−Mississippi (h)

Change in T (oC)
40
Change in P (%)

6
20
4
0
2
−20
−40 0
−60 −2
60 8
(b) Ganges (i)

Change in T (oC)
40
Change in P (%)

6
20
4
0
2
−20
−40 0
−60 −2
60 8
(c) Blue Nile (j)

Change in T (oC)
40
Change in P (%)

6
20
4
0
2
−20
−40 0
−60 −2
60 8
(d) Upper−Niger (k)
Change in T (oC)

40
Change in P (%)

6
20
4
0
2
−20
−40 0
−60 −2
60 8
(e) Rhine (l)
Change in P (%)

Change in T (oC)

40 6
20
4
0
2
−20
−40 0
−60 −2
60 8
(f) Upper−Amazon (m)
Change in T (oC)

40
Change in P (%)

6
20
4
0
2
−20
−40 0
−60 −2
60 8
(g) Upper−Yellow (n)
Change in T (oC)

40
Change in P (%)

6
20
4
0
2
−20
−40 0
−60 −2
1980 2000 2020 2040 2060 1980 2000 2020 2040 2060
Year Year

Fig. 1 a–g Multimodel ensemble mean change (%), mean annual precipitation (P), and (h-m) multimodel
ensemble mean change (°C) in mean annual air temperature (T) for the period of 1971–2099 for RCP 8.5
scenario for Upper-Mississippi, Ganges, Blue Nile, Upper-Niger, Rhine, Upper-Amazon, and Upper-Yellow
basins. Changes in mean annual P and T were estimated against the reference period of 1981–2010 for each 30-
year period starting from 1971 using 30-year moving window (1971–2000, 1972–2001, and so on). Shaded area
shows uncertainty (±1standard deviation) in P and T projections

Multimodel ensemble mean changes in mean annual temperature with respect to the historic
reference period (1981–2010) were estimated for the RCP 2.6 and 8.5 scenarios (Figs. 1 and S1;
Table S2). Analysis for the historic period (1981–2010) based on five climate models showed
Climatic Change (2017) 141:451–465 457

that mean annual air temperature is the highest (26.7°C) in the Upper-Niger basin, while it is the
lowest (−1.2°C) in the Upper-Yellow basin. The Upper-Niger basin is located in warm and wet
climates while the Upper-Yellow basin is in dry and cold climates. Moderate differences in
mean annual air temperature for the historic (1981–2010, Table S2) and observed (1971–2000,
see Krysanova and Hattermann (2016) in this SI) periods can be attributed to the different
sources of datasets (note that after 2005, the GCM data are from the RCPs scenarios). Mean
annual precipitation and air temperature for the other basins can be found in Tables S1 and S2.
In contrast with the precipitation projections, the projected increase in mean annual air
temperature was robust across all the basins under both RCPs (Figs. 1 and S1; Table S2).
Significant warming was found in all the basins by the end of twenty-first century with more
prominent warming under the RCP 8.5 scenario. In the Near term climate, three (six) basins
are projected to experience above 1°C warming under RCP 2.6 (8.5) [Table S2, Fig. 1]. A
substantial warming of equal or more than 2.5 and 4.4°C is projected for the Mid and the End
term climate under RCP 8.5, respectively, across all analyzed basins (Table S2). The top two
basins that are projected to experience an increase of more than 5°C in the End term climate
under RCP 8.5 are Upper-Mississippi (5.9 ± 1.7°C) and Upper-Yellow (5.3 ± 1.3°C).

3.2 Changes in ET and P-ET

The response of projected changes in precipitation and air temperature (wetter and warmer)
under the future climate was reflected in the changes in mean annual ET and P-ET (Fig. 2).
Multimodel ensemble mean ET estimates for the historic period showed the highest and lowest
ET for the Upper-Niger (1115.5 ± 194.2 mm) and Upper-Yellow (368.0 ± 10.7 mm) basins
(Table S3), respectively. In comparison to precipitation, intermodel variation in ET estimates is
higher for the historic period (Table S3), which can be attributed to uncertainty in precipitation
from GCMs that was amplified further through the hydrological models.
ET is projected to increase substantially in the Blue Nile (12.6 ± 13.0%), Upper-Mississippi
(10.9 ± 5.5%), and the Upper-Yellow (23.4 ± 9.4%) basins under the RCP 8.5 scenario at the
End of twenty-first century (Fig. 2, Table S3). Multimodel ensemble mean projected increase
in ET is higher for the RCP 8.5 scenario than that for the RCP 2.6 scenario (Figure S2), which
may be related to projections of precipitation and air temperature in these two scenarios. The
highest increase in mean annual ET at the End of twenty-first century is projected for the
Upper-Yellow basin (Table S3), where the projected increase in mean annual precipitation is
also the highest (Table S1). In the Upper-Niger basin, the projected increase in ET is the lowest
(2.2 ± 9.0%) among the seven basins (Table S3). Overall, our results show that the wetter and
warmer climates in the basins would lead to an increase in ET; and basins in cold and dry
climates (such as the Upper-Yellow basin) may experience higher relative increases in ET in
comparison to the historic reference period. The differences in the projected changes in ET in
the Upper-Niger and Upper-Yellow basins can be explained on the basis of availability of
energy and water (precipitation) leading to increased soil water content (Wang et al. 2010).
Based on the multimodel ensemble mean for the historic period (1981–2010), a proxy for
the available water (P-ET) is noted to be the highest (1150.7 ± 282.8 mm) for the Upper-
Amazon basin and the lowest (142.7 ± 13.2 mm) for the Upper-Yellow basin (Table S4). A
large inter-model variation in the P-ET estimates for the historic period can be attributed to
uncertainties in forcing data from GCMs and the ET estimation approaches in the hydrological
models. The basins reflected both increases and declines in P-ET under the future climate,
depending on scenario and period (Figs. 2, S2 and Table S4). For instance, the multimodel
 458 Climatic Change (2017) 141:451–465

RCP 8.5 RCP 8.5

60 160

Change in P−ET (%)

120
Change in ET (%)

40 (a) Upper−Mississippi (h)

80
20 40
0 0
−20 −40
−80
−40 −120
−60 −160
60 160

Change in P−ET (%)

120
Change in ET (%)

40 (b) Ganges (i)

80
20 40
0 0
−20 −40
−80
−40 −120
−60 −160
60 160

Change in P−ET (%)

120
Change in ET (%)

40 (c) Blue Nile (j)

80
20 40
0 0
−20 −40
−80
−40 −120
−60 −160
60 160
Change in P−ET (%)

120
Change in ET (%)

40 (d) Upper−Niger (k)

80
20 40
0 0
−20 −40
−80
−40 −120
−60 −160
60 160
Change in P−ET (%)

(e) Rhine 120 (l)

Change in ET (%)

40
80
20 40
0 0
−20 −40
−80
−40 −120
−60 −160
60 160
Change in P−ET (%)

(f) Upper−Amazon 120 (m)

Change in ET (%)

40
80
20 40
0 0
−20 −40
−80
−40 −120
−60 −160
60 160
Change in P−ET (%)

120
Change in ET (%)

40 (g) Upper−Yellow (n)

80
20 40
0 0
−20 −40
−80
−40 −120
−60 −160
1980 2000 2020 2040 2060 1980 2000 2020 2040 2060
Year Year

Fig. 2 a–g Multimodel ensemble mean change (%), mean annual evapotranspiration (ET), and (h-m)
multimodel ensemble mean change (%) in mean annual P-ET for the period of 1971–2099 for RCP 8.5 scenario
for Upper-Mississippi, Ganges, Blue Nile, Upper-Niger, Rhine, Upper-Amazon, and Upper-Yellow basins.
Changes in mean annual ET and P-ET were estimated against the reference period of 1981–2010 for each 30-
year period starting from 1971 using 30-year moving window (1971–2000, 1972–2001, and so on). Shaded area
shows uncertainty (±1standard deviation) in ET and P-ET projections

ensemble mean P-ET is projected to decline in the Upper-Mississippi (−6.5 ± 7.6%) and Upper
Yellow (−3.8 ± 8.2%) basins in the Near term under RCP 2.6. In the same period, the Rhine
(−0.1 ± 3.2%) and the Upper-Amazon (0.0 ± 6.7%) basins are projected to experience
Climatic Change (2017) 141:451–465 459

negligible changes in P-ET, while the Ganges, Blue Nile, and Upper-Niger basins are projected
to experience increase in P-ET under the RCP2.6 scenario.
In the RCP8.5 scenario, the ensemble mean P-ET is projected to decline in the Upper-
Mississippi in all the three terms, Rhine in the End term and Upper-Yellow basin in the Near
term climate (Table S4). The ensemble mean P-ET is projected to increase in five basins in the End
term climate (Fig. 2 and Table S4). The basins with the largest increase in P-ET are the Blue Nile
(48.0 ± 108.0%), Ganges (33.7 ± 22.2%), and Upper-Amazon (15.5 ± 16.1%) in the End of the
twenty-first century under RCP 8.5. The largest uncertainty in the projections of P-ET was found
for the Blue Nile basin under RCP 8.5 scenario in the End term climate (Table S4 and Fig. 2).

3.3 Changes in partitioning of precipitation (P) into ET and P-ET

The projected changes in ET and P-ET reflect the changing characteristics of the partitioning of
precipitation into ET and a proxy of available water (P-ET). To investigate how these changes
are occurring, we estimated the multimodel ensemble fraction of precipitation that is evapo-
rated (ET/P) for the historic reference (1981–2010) and projected future climate in all of the
seven basins (Figure S3 and Table S5). For the historic reference period, the highest ET/P ratio
was found for the Blue Nile basin (81.1 ± 10.4%), while the lowest ratio was noticed for the
Upper-Amazon basin (44.6 ± 13.5%). Except the Upper-Amazon, all the other basins have ET/
P higher than 50% indicating high evaporative demands and relatively low runoff ratio in these
basins. Similar to ET and P-ET for the historic climate, a large intermodel variation in ET/P
was found for most of the basins, which indicate that uncertainty in ET is translated into
uncertainty in the partitioning of precipitation into ET and runoff.
In five out of seven basins, ET/P is projected to decline in future under the RCP 2.6 scenario
(Figure S3 and Table S5) in the End term. However, under the RCP8.5 scenario, four (Upper-
Mississippi, Upper-Yellow, Rhine, and Upper-Niger) out of seven basins are projected to
experience an increased ET/P in the End of the twenty-first century. The ET/P ratio is projected
to decline in the Ganges, Blue Nile, and Upper-Amazon basins under the RCP8.5 scenario in
the End of the twenty-first century. Increased warming with higher precipitation will lead to an
increased evaporative demand under the warmer and wetter climates that most of the basins are
projected to experience. Jung et al. (2010) reported a decline in ET due to soil moisture deficit,
which is experienced in the basins where projected warming is high but increase in precipitation
is relatively low. Overall, we notice both increases and declines in ET/P ratio among the seven
basins under the projected future climate.

3.4 Precipitation elasticity and temperature sensitivity of ET and P-ET

In addition, we estimated the multimodel ensemble mean precipitation elasticity and temper-
ature sensitivity of ET and P-ET for the RCP 2.6 and 8.5 scenarios (Fig. 3). Under RCP 2.6,
the Blue Nile and Upper-Yellow basins showed a higher (more than 0.5) precipitation elasticity
of ET than that noted in the other basins (Fig. 3a). This indicates that in the majority of basins,
a 1% increase in mean annual precipitation will result in less than 0.5% increase in ET
(keeping other factors constant). Precipitation elasticity of ET was the lowest for the Upper-
Niger basin and highest for the Upper-Yellow basin under the RCP 8.5 scenario. This implies
that the same amount of increase in mean annual precipitation will result in the lowest change
in ET in the Upper-Niger basin and the highest in the Upper-Yellow basin. These contrasting
differences can be explained based on relative changes in water and energy availability.
460 Climatic Change (2017) 141:451–465

1.0
(a) RCP 2.6
0.8 RCP 8.5
ET Elasticity (%)
0.6

0.4

0.2

0.0
3
(b)
2
ET Sensitivity (%)

−1

−2

4
(c)
3
P−ET Elasticity (%)

0
6

3
(d)
P−ET Sensitivity (%)

−3

−6
−9

−12
−15
Upper−Mississippi

Upper−Amazon

Upper−Yellow
Blue Nile

Upper−Niger
Ganges

Rhine

Fig. 3 Multimodel median precipitation elasticity and temperature sensitivity of ET and P-ET under RCP 2.6
and RCP 8.5 scenarios for Upper-Mississippi, Ganges, Blue Nile, Upper-Niger, Rhine, Upper-Amazon, and
Upper-Yellow basins

The temperature sensitivity of ET was positive in six basins, while it was negative for the Ganges
basin under the RCP 2.6 scenario (Fig. 3b). Most of the basins, therefore, showed a positive
temperature sensitivity of ET, meaning that a 1°C increase in air temperature will result in ET
increase of about 1–2%. However, for the basin like Ganges, which exhibited a negative temperature
sensitivity of ET, a 1°C increase in air temperature will result in a reduction of about 2% in ET. Under
the RCP 2.6 scenario, projected increase in precipitation is moderate and warming may result in soil
 Climatic Change (2017) 141:451–465 461

moisture deficit as observed by Jung et al. (2010). However, for the RCP 8.5 scenario, temperature
sensitivity of ET was positive for all the basins with values below 2% (Fig. 3b).
We noticed that the precipitation elasticity of P-ET is higher than that estimated for the ET
alone for all the analyzed basins (Fig. 3c). Under both RCP scenarios, our analysis showed that a
1% increase in mean annual precipitation would result in an increase of more than 1.5–3.0% in P-
ET (Fig. 3c). On the other hand, the temperature sensitivity of P-ET was negative in the majority
of basins (Fig. 3d), indicating that increased warming is projected to reduce a proxy of water
availability in most of the basins. It is worth noting the opposite sign in ET and P-ET sensitivities
(Fig. 3b, d), which suggests that a reduction in P-ET is largely due to increase in ET under the
warming climate. The Ganges basin is the only one that showed a positive temperature sensitivity
indicating that a 1°C increase in air temperature over this basin would result in an increase of
about 3% in P-ET under the RCP 2.6 scenario. Positive temperature sensitivity of P-ET for the
Ganges basin can be attributed, among other factors, to the increased projected precipitation as
well as to role of cold season processes (snow and glaciers) on increased water availability in the
basin (Barnett et al. 2005; Immerzeel et al. 2010). However, we acknowledge the limitation of
representation of glaciers in the regional hydrological models used in this study.

3.5 Disentangling the uncertainty in ET and P-ET projections

We disentangled the uncertainty in ET and P-ET projections due to HMs, GCMs, and their
interaction for both scenarios using the ANOVA method (Fig. 4). The contribution of HMs,

ET
(a) RCP2.6 (b) RCP8.5
100 100

80 80
Contribution (%)

60 60

40 40

20 20

0 0
NME NME NME NME NME NME NME NME NME NME NME NME NME NME

P−ET
(c) RCP2.6 (d) RCP8.5
100 100

80 80
Contribution (%)

60 60

40 40

20 20

0 0
NME NME NME NME NME NME NME NME NME NME NME NME NME NME
i

on

pi
p

n
w
ip

w
ip
az
er

az
lo

er
iss

lo
iss
ile

m
ig

ile
el

m
ig

el
iss

iss
N

s
N

Y
ge

N
ge
ne

ne
−

−
−M

−
−M
ue
an

ue
er

er

er

an
hi

er

er

er
hi
Bl

pp

pp

pp
G

Bl
R
er

pp

pp

pp
G

R
er
pp

pp

U
U

HMs GCMs Interaction

Fig. 4 Contribution (%) in the overall uncertainty due to hydrologic models (HMs), global climate models
(GCMs), and their interactions for ET under RCP 2.6 (a) and RCP 8.5 (b) for the Near (N: 2011:2040), Mid (M:
2041:2070), and End (E: 2071–2099) periods for Upper-Mississippi, Ganges, Blue Nile, Upper-Niger, Rhine,
Upper-Amazon, and Upper-Yellow basins. c, d same as a, b for available water (P-ET)
462 Climatic Change (2017) 141:451–465

GCMs, and their interactions to the overall uncertainty varied with the selected periods (Near,
Mid, or End), emission scenarios (RCP2.6 and 8.5), and geographical location. For the
majority of basins, uncertainty from the GCMs remains the highest for the ET projections in
both RCP scenarios (Figs. 4a, b). We also found a relatively large contribution of HMs to the
overall uncertainty for the Upper-Amazon, Upper-Yellow, and Upper-Mississippi basins. In
fact, in a few cases in these three basins, the uncertainty due to HMs dominates over that from
the GCMs for the ET projections, especially under the RCP 8.5 scenario (Fig. 4a, b).
The contribution of uncertainty in the P-ET projections is largely dominated by the GCMs
in most of the basins (Fig. 4c, d) under both RCP scenarios. Contribution from the interaction
of HMs and GCMs in the overall uncertainty for the P-ET projection was lesser than that noted
for the ET projections. These results highlight the necessity of improvements in both climate
and hydrological models for reducing uncertainty in the ET projections.

4 Discussion and conclusions

From the multimodel ensemble mean projected precipitation and air temperature, it can be
noticed that the majority of analyzed basins are projected to experience wetter and warmer
conditions under the future climate. A wetter and warmer climate in the large basins may
intensify hydrological cycle with increased P and ET (Huntington 2006; Douville et al. 2013),
which will affect a proxy of available water (P-ET).
Moreover, wetter and warmer climates can also lead to changes in water regime in the
basins that are affected by the cold season processes. For instance, Viste and Sorteberg (2015)
reported that despite uncertainties in the climate projections, the Ganges basin is projected to
experience a decline of 50% in mean annual snowfall by the end of the twenty-first century
under the RCP 8.5 scenario. Similarly, in the worst-case scenario (decline in precipitation),
increased temperature and evapotranspiration may lead to decline in water availability in the
Yellow basin (Piao et al. 2010). Barnett et al. (2005) and Immerzeel et al. (2010) reported
similar impacts of climate warming on the cold season processes dominated basins. Better
representation of cold season processes and glaciers in the Ganges and Upper-Yellow basins in
the regional hydrological models is required for an improved understanding of climate change
impacts on ET and P-ET.
According to literature, both GCMs and HMs contribute to uncertainty in the future
projections of hydrological variables (ET and runoff). For instance, Hagemann et al. (2013)
reported that the uncertainty in the projected ET was largely dominated by global hydrological
models, whereas for the runoff projections the GCM-related uncertainty was larger over many
regions. Samaniego et al. (2016) reported that the GCM-related uncertainty largely prevailed
over HMs uncertainty for runoff-based drought projections over the same analyzed basins as in
our study. Furthermore, Vetter et al. (2016) conducted analysis on 12 basins and found that the
largest uncertainty in projected runoff was due to GCMs followed by RCPs and regional-scale
HMs. Schewe et al. (2014) found that both GCMs and HMs contribute to the uncertainty in
projections of water scarcity, however, uncertainty from HMs was significant in many areas
that were projected to face water scarcity. The regional hydrological models under the ISI-
MIP2 framework were calibrated and evaluated against observed streamflow and not for ET.
In our view, further efforts are needed for constraining (and evaluating) the hydrological model
parameterizations against remotely sensed ET and soil moisture (Shah and Mishra 2016),
which may be useful for reducing uncertainties in the ET projections.
Climatic Change (2017) 141:451–465 463

As reported in Kundzewicz and Stakhiv (2010), global climate models need improvements
to reduce uncertainty in precipitation, which is a key hydrological parameter for water
management. We found substantial intermodel variation in precipitation (mainly due to
differences in GCMs), however, uncertainty in ET and P-ET estimates during the historic
period (1981–2010) was much higher than that of precipitation, indicating the role of
hydrological models in simulating ET. The three hydrological models (VIC, mHM, and
HYMOD) have differences in the PET estimation approach, number of soil layers, and
representation of vegetation, which can substantially contribute to uncertainty in ET estimates.
Increase in both water (increased precipitation) and energy availability (increased air temper-
ature and solar radiation) in the major basins had resulted in increased ET under both RCP 2.6
and 8.5 scenarios in most cases. Among the three models considered here, two (mHM and
HYMOD) used the forcing PET estimates based on the Hargreaves and Samani (Hargreaves
and Samani 1982) method, which is only sensitive to temperature changes. Other factors such
as changes in the wind speed and humidity may play a greater role in the PET estimates
(Hobbins et al. 2012), and their sensitivity on ET has to be estimated.
These hydrological models do not consider the effects of vegetation adaptation (stomata
closure) to changing climatic conditions leading to simulated hydrological fluxes and states
different from models that explicitly accounts for the dynamic response of plants to changes in
CO2 and climate (Prudhomme et al. 2014). Most of the uncertainty in the projections of a
proxy of available water (P-ET) is likely to be associated with the large precipitation
uncertainty under the projected future climate. However, there are several other factors
(observational errors related to hydro-meteorological datasets, structure and parameterization
of hydrological models, and parametric uncertainty in hydrological models) that can contribute
to predictive uncertainty of ET and P-ET (Kumar et al. 2013; Samaniego et al. 2013; Vetter
et al. 2015). Our analysis is based on only 3 HMs and 5 GCMs, and considering more HMs
may be useful to get a better understanding of ET and P-ET uncertainties in the projected future
climate.
Based on our findings, the following conclusions can be made:

1) Among the seven basins, a majority of basins are projected to experience a warmer and
wetter climates in the future. While projections of warming are robust across the basins, a
large uncertainty is associated with the precipitation projection under the projected future
climate. The Ganges, Blue Nile, and Upper-Yellow basins are projected to experience an
average increase in precipitation of 18.3, 18.6, and 20.8%, respectively, under RCP 8.5 in
the End of the twenty-first century. All the basins are projected to experience equal or
higher than 4.4°C increase in mean annual air temperature under RCP 8.5 by the end of
the twenty-first century.
2) Because of the differences in climate model input and among hydrological models,
uncertainty in simulated ET and P-ET was substantially higher than that in precipitation.
Higher uncertainty in the historic period also warrants that the regional hydrological
models need to be calibrated and evaluated against observed or satellite-driven ET. While
ET is projected to increase in all the basins in response to warmer and wetter climates, the
Upper-Yellow Basin, which is located in the cold and dry climates, is projected to
experience the highest relative increase (23.4%) under the RCP 8.5 scenario. The proxy
of available water (P-ET), on other hand, is projected to decline in the Rhine, Upper-
Mississippi, Upper-Yellow, and Upper-Amazon basins in some of the analyzed periods
under the RCP 2.6 and 8.5 scenarios.
464 Climatic Change (2017) 141:451–465

3) Evaporative ratio (ET/P) was higher than 0.5 in most of the basins (except Upper-
Amazon). A large uncertainty was noted in the projected ET and P-ET under future
climate, which was largely due to the GCMs uncertainty. However, for three of the seven
basins (Upper-Amazon, Upper-Yellow, and Upper-Mississippi), the uncertainty due to
HMs was substantially large.
4) Precipitation elasticity and temperature sensitivity of ET was found to be positive in all the
basins under the RCP 8.5 scenario, indicating that warmer and wetter climates will lead to
increased ET estimates. The precipitation elasticity (and temperature sensitivity) for P-ET
was mostly positive (negative) in the majority of the basins.

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