Climate change effects on flooding at Lurin river basin, Peru

The magnitude and frequency of extreme precipitation events are expected to increase in central Peruvian Andes for this century, which will pose a significant challenge on water resources management and flood risk mitigation. The present study focuses on assessing the possible flood hazard under two different climate change scenarios (SSP 4.5 and SSP 8.5) in the lower part of the Lurin River watershed (~ 1642.5 Km²) by using a distributed physically-based hydrologic and erosional model (e.g. TREX) and a 2-D depth-averaged hydraulic and sediment transport model (e.g. BASEMENT-2D). The models were calibrated using hydrometeorological data corresponding to the extreme flood events of 2015 and 2017 and satellite-based and UAV-derived inundation maps. Future climate scenarios are going to be constructed from bias-corrected outputs of CMIP6 global climate models, while the rainfall temporal patterns for different return periods will be obtained from observed precipitation events corresponding to extreme flood events of El Niño 2017. Results are expected to provide important data needed to make policy changes to mitigate the negative impacts of climate change in the Lurin River basin.