Climate change impact on the river runoff: Regional study for the Central Asian region

The degree of impact of possible climate changes on the regime of mountain rivers of the Central Asia can be evaluated by sufficiently reliable mathematical models of the runoff formation in mountains. The basic mathematical model describes a complete cycle of the runoff formation, reflecting the main factors and processes: precipitation, dynamics of a snow cover, evaporation, contribution of melting and rain water to the catchment, glacial runoff, runoff transformation and losses in basin. The model complex consists of the model of snow cover formation in the mountains basin, model of glacial runoff and model of snowmelt and rainfall water inflow transformation in runoff. Calculations on regional climatic scenarios indicate that runoff volumes decrease. Longer-term assessments of the water recourses are more pessimistic, since, along with increasing evaporation, water resource inputs (snow and glaciers in the mountains) are continuously shrinking.