**1. Introduction**

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Based on the monitoring data and climate projections, scientists highly agree that freshwater resources are vulnerable and have the potential to be strongly impacted by climate change in the long-run. However, there is no consensus about the degree of impact of human activities on climate change. Using simulation techniques, Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) estimates the expected changes in the climate on a global scale for different emission scenarios. The results from global estimations are used to drive other simulations that run on regional scaled smaller domains at higher spatial resolution.

Assuming that climate change scenarios will be realized in the future, it is possible to foresee that there will be effects of climate change on watershed ecology and on the water resources. Considering only two of the climate change related variables; temperature and precipitation one can conclude that


This chapter is devoted to the impacts of climate change on freshwater resources; their availability, quality, quantity, uses and management is evaluated. Impacts on ecology are mentioned. Several management alternatives to reduce the potential adverse effects of climate change are identified; merits and tradeoffs involved are discussed. The discussions on this chapter is about what the ecological impacts of climate change on aquatic ecosystems and water resources will be and what precautions can be taken to sustain watershed ecosystems and water resources together with the demands of our socioeconomic system rather than "how we can prevent the climate change".

Managing the Effects of the Climate Change on Water Resources and Watershed Ecology 261

indicated that without any limitations in human activities related to industrial emissions, 1.8ºC of global temperature increase and 6 – 30 cm sea level rise may be expected 2030 taking the beginning of the industrial revolution (second half of the 18th century) as

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) refers in the Fourth Assessment Report, AR4, to the warming of the global climate system and states that "most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely [this likelihood statement can be interpreted as probability in excess of 90%; comment added] due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations" (Szwed et al., 2010). It is also expressed that on the global average, surface temperatures have in¬creased by about 0.74°C between years 1906 and 2005 during which the warming has not been steady and not kept the same both temporally and spatially (IPCC, 2007). According to the recordings taken since 1901 only a few areas have been cooled, among which one of the most notable one is the northern North Atlantic near southern Greenland. However, during this period warming has been experienced more over the continental interiors of Asia and northern North America. As referred by IPCC (2007), the most evident warming signal has occurred in parts of the middle and lower latitudes whereas the duration of the frost-free season has increased in most mid- and high-latitude regions of both hemispheres. Besides, most mountain glaciers and ice caps have been shrinking since

Observations so far indicate that over most land areas, cold days and nights have got warmer and fewer, while hot days and nights have got warmer and more frequent. Area affected by drought has been increased. This trend is expected to continue in the future.

The effects of climate change have been highly sensed in sectors like agriculture, energy and water related applications. As stated by Szwed et al., (2010), agriculture in the northern Europe has been temperature-restricted, while in the south it has been water-restricted. Both conditions may have lead to decrease in the crop yields and require the selection of new irrigation techniques, new crop patterns etc. for the sustainability of agricultural production. Water-related studies frequently mention that water budgets may become increasingly stressed. High evapotranspiration and low precipitation in summer leads to depletion of the

Moreover, researches and model-based studies indicate that weather-related extremes are expected to get more frequent and/or more severe and coping with these events will become more difficult. Countries facing such conditions are attempting to take mitigation

Data related to climate change are on two different temporal scales. The first of these data is the so-called paleoclimatological data that is indirect. Stable isotope data dating back hundreds thousands of years back is used to reconstruct the past atmospheric composition and basic atmospheric conditions such as temperature, precipitation. The second type of data is the historical data from observations dating approximately two centuries back at most. Long term

time series of meteorological data can be used to analyse the recent climate dynamics.

measures and develop national and/or regional adaptation strategies.

**2. Simple methods to quantify the climate change** 

reference.

1850s.

water storage.

**2.1 Data** 
