Climate change is expected to alter streamflow and sediment load in the transboundary Mekong River Basin (MRB), thereby affecting aquatic ecosystem and people’s livelihoods. Thus, future decisions on sustainable management of water resources in the basin should take climate change impact into consideration. In this study, the responses of river discharge and sediment (total suspended sediment [TSS]) load to future climate change in the transboundary MRB have been investigated. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model is used as a simulation tool, which has been carefully calibrated and validated against the observation data in the period of 1982–2005 before applying to evaluate the impact of climate change scenarios for the near‐future period of 2016–2040. The climate change scenarios, which are acquired from four different Regional Climate Models (RCMs) downscaled from the Hadley Centre Global Environmental Model version 2‐Atmosphere (HadGEM2‐AO), are applied in the present study. In regard to the effect of changing climate, the annual river discharge and TSS load are forecasted to rise from 3.35 to 9.13% and from 7.45 to 13.15%, respectively. Generally, the TSS loading projection varies larger than the streamflow projection concerning changing climate. The findings here are also agreed with the conclusions of previous investigations on the future impacts of changing climate in the MRB.

中文翻译：

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跨界湄公河流域河流排沙量对气候变化的响应

预计气候变化将改变跨界湄公河流域（MRB）的水流和泥沙负荷，从而影响水生生态系统和人们的生计。因此，有关流域水资源可持续管理的未来决定应考虑到气候变化的影响。在这项研究中，研究了跨界MRB中河流流量和沉积物（总悬浮沉积物[TSS]）负荷对未来气候变化的响应。土壤和水评估工具（SWAT）模型被用作模拟工具，该模型已针对1982-2005年期间的观测数据进行了仔细校准和验证，然后才用于评估气候变化情景对近期的影响2016-2040年期间。气候变化情景，本研究应用了从Hadley中心全球环境模型版本2-大气（HadGEM2-AO）降级后的四个不同的区域气候模型（RCM）获取的数据。关于气候变化的影响，预计每年的河流排放量和TSS负荷将分别从3.35％增加到9.13％和从7.45％增加到13.15％。通常，关于气候变化，TSS负荷预测的变化要大于流量预测的变化。这里的发现也与先前关于MRB中气候变化的未来影响的调查结论一致。预计每年的河流流量和TSS负荷将分别从3.35％增加到9.13％和从7.45％增加到13.15％。通常，关于气候变化，TSS负荷预测的变化要大于流量预测的变化。这里的发现也与先前关于MRB中气候变化的未来影响的调查结论一致。预计每年的河流流量和TSS负荷将分别从3.35％增加到9.13％和从7.45％增加到13.15％。通常，关于气候变化，TSS负荷预测的变化要大于流量预测的变化。这里的发现也与先前关于MRB中气候变化的未来影响的调查结论一致。