ORIGINAL ARTICLE Assessment of streamflow and catchment water balance sensitivity to climate change for the Yass River catchment in south eastern Australia Partha Pratim Saha • Ketema Zeleke Received: 16 February 2014 / Accepted: 1 November 2014 / Published online: 18 November 2014 Ó Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014 Abstract Probable impacts of climate change on water resources are a great concern for hydrologists, water managers and policy makers. Global warming and climate change is expected to change the water availability. Using physically based hydrological model Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT), this study assessed the sensi- tivity of streamflow to individual and combined changes in temperature and rainfall for the Yass River catchment of south eastern Australia. This study also predicted the change in streamflow based on three climate scenarios (B1, A1B, A2) of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report on Emission Scenarios and average of four general circulation models (CNRM-CM3, CSIRO-MK3.5, ECHam5 and MIROC3.2) for three future periods (2030, 2050 and 2090). Streamflow of the Yass River was found to be highly sensitive to both temperature and rainfall changes where 1 % change in rainfall might cause 3–5 % change in streamflow and flow might be reduced up to 16 % for 1 °C rise in temperature. Simulation results based on General Circulation Models (GCM) outputs predicted that the Yass River will likely experience huge change in streamflow due to the impact of climate change. However, due to associated uncertainties regarding climate change scenarios and climate models outputs, the results need to be evaluated carefully before making decisions in future water management and planning. Keywords Climate change Á Hydrological modeling Á Streamflow sensitivity Á SWAT Á Yass River Introduction Sustainable water resources management requires striking a balance between human and environmental water demands. Uneven population and rainfall distribution is currently forcing inhabitants of several regions to live under water stress conditions and the condition is expected to exacerbate in the context of projected climate change (Addams et al. 2009). Australia is the driest inhabited continent with more than 80 % of the country receiving average annual rainfall below 600 mm and 50 % of those receive less than 200 mm (ABS 2013a). About 90 % of this rainfall is lost through evapotranspi- ration (ET) (Kollmorgen et al. 2007). With an average of only 45 mm, Australian runoff is the lowest of all the continents: one-fourth of Africa, one-seventh of Asia, Europe and North America and one-fourteenth of South America (Kollmorgen et al. 2007). Australian rivers show high-year-to year variability which is about double the value for rest of the world (Chiew 2011; Kollmorgen et al. 2007). Since hydrologic conditions and influence of climate change on local hydrology vary from region to region (Zhang et al. 2007), change in future climatic conditions is likely to have a different impact on indi- vidual catchments. The sensitivity of streamflow to tem- perature and rainfall also varies with local conditions P. P. Saha (&) School of Environmental Sciences, Charles Sturt University, Building 440, Room 104, Locked bag 588, Wagga Wagga, NSW 2678, Australia e-mail: psaha@csu.edu.au K. Zeleke School of Agricultural and Wine Sciences, Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, Australia K. Zeleke Graham Centre for Agricultural Innovation, Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, Australia 123 Environ Earth Sci (2015) 73:6229–6242 DOI 10.1007/s12665-014-3846-9