Climate Change Effect on Soil Erosion in Vjosa River Basin

Soil erosion is closely related to climate changes, because changes to temperature and precipitation regimes may alter the erosivity of rainfall. The present study aimed to project future soil erosion phenomena in the Vjosa River Basin (VRB) using climate projections under the Representative Concentrations Pathway (RCP) 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios. SimCLIM model was used to perform the climate projection for the years 2035 and 2050, based on historical temperature and precipitation data (2000–2015). This investigation was carried out by using Erosion Potential Method EPM to estimate the effects of climate change on soil erosion in Vjosa River Basin, Albania. Results show an increase in average min and max annual temperature for both scenarios RCP4.5 and 8.5 by the end of 2050. The evaluation of the monthly precipitations for all RCPs reveals a likely decrease in summer precipitation, and a slight positive trend of winter precipitation for all time periods up to 2050. An increase in terms of eroded material and specific eroded material was estimated from the results of RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios. Thus, it can be stated that the study area has and will have a moderate erosion risk under these climate conditions.