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Titre : Nature-based solutions in mountains can reduce climate change impact on drought

New research has shown how catchment restoration—through the management of alien tree infestation in the mountains of the southwestern Cape—could have lessened the impact of climate change on low river flows during the Cape Town "Day Zero" drought.

Phys.org/news (MARCH 9, 2022)

Présentation
Climate change is impacting extreme weather events such as droughts and floods. Nature-based solutions, such as catchment restoration, involve working with ecosystems and landscapes to address societal challenges. These challenges include the impacts of climate change on water resources. Up to now, studies have not separated the role of nature-based solutions in reducing the human-driven climate change impacts of extreme events on water availability from that of natural climate variability.

Wanting to inform water resource adaptation planning, this new study by an all-southern African based research team published in Communications Earth & Environment, set out to do this using the Cape Town Day Zero drought as an example. Their focus was on a typical type of catchment restoration in South Africa—invasive alien tree management.

The research team linked climate models and a hydrological model to simulate streamflow during the "Day Zero" drought. They then tested how severe the hydrological drought would have been if there had been no human-driven climate change. Their focus was specifically on the impacts of climate change and alien tree management on streamflow from mountainous catchments that supply dams critical for water supply to Cape Town.

Source  : University of South Africa

Annonce (Phys.org/news)