Yueping Xu
Institute of Hydrology and Water Resources, Department of Hydraulic Engineering,
College of Civil Engineering, Zhejiang University, China

In recent decades, the hydrological cycle has been significantly influenced by climate change and human activities in China. It is well recognized that there are noticeable changes of water availability and increase of extreme events like flooding or droughts in many regions of China. Therefore, investigating the potential impacts of climate change on regional hydrology and water resources is one of the key tasks of Chinese hydrologists and water professionals. In this talk, climate change and its impacts on hydrology and water resources will be discussed. The main contents include an overview of possible climate change impacts on hydrology and water resources, discussions on main challenges in climate change impact analysis research, and some illustrations from climate change impact analysis results based on Qiantang River Basin, East China. The final results imply that possible proactive decisions can be taken to deal with change of water availability or extreme event magnitude or frequency, particularly for some regions where shortage of water and natural disasters are already a serious problem.