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Summary: The Danjiangkou reservoir lies in the upper Hanjiang basin and is the source of water for the middle route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project (SNWDP) in China. Any significant change in the magnitude or timing of runoff from the Danjiangkou reservoir induced by changes in climatic variables would have significant implications for the economic prosperity of the area in the Hanjiang basin as well as for the South-to-North Water Diversion Project. In this paper the following issues are investigated: (1) Temporal trends of annual and seasonal precipitation and temperature from 1951 to 2003 in the Hanjiang basin are analyzed using the Mann–Kendall and the linear regression methods; spatial distributions of precipitation and temperature are interpolated by the inverse distance weighted interpolation method. (2) Temporal trends of runoff, precipitation and temperature from 1951 to 2003 in the Danjiangkou reservoir, an upper stream basin of the Hanjiang River, are further tested. (3) To assess the impact of climate change on water resources and predict the future runoff change in the Danjiangkou reservoir basin, a two-parameter water balance model is used to simulate the hydrological response for the climate change predicted by GCMs for the region for the period of 2021–2050. The results indicate that (1) at the α =0.05 significance level precipitation in the Hanjiang basin has no trend, but the temperature in the same region has significant upward trends in most parts of the Hanjiang basin. (2) The mean annual, spring, and winter runoffs in the Danjiangkou reservoir basin have decreasing trends. (3) The results simulated for the period 2021–2050 show that runoff of the Danjiangkou reservoir would increase in all the seasons, mainly in response to the predicted precipitation increase in the region. Sensitivity analysis shows that a 1°C and 2°C increase in temperature would reduce the mean annual runoff to about 3.5% and 7%, respectively. A decrease/increase of the mean monthly precipitation of 20% and 10% would decrease/increase the mean annual runoff to about 30% and 15%, respectively. The results of this study provide a scientific reference not only for assessing the impact of the climate change on water resources and the flood prevention in the Hanjiang basin, but also for dimensioning the middle route of the SNWDP in China. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• All GCMs except MIROC-ESM simulate a higher mean temperature in Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) period than Little Ice Age (LIA) period, while simulated annual precipitation varies a lot in different GCMs and catchments. • No significant change of flood characteristics during the last millennium from ensemble-mean results. • In future, we will have an extraordinary shift in flood seasonality and generating processes, and flood frequency increase in most of the study catchments in Norway. • Climate projections represent the largest contribution to overall uncertainty in the projected changes in hydrological extremes for most of the catchments. With the recent warming trend over Europe and the Arctic, the Nordic regions have experienced more frequent and damaging extreme hydrological events which are anticipated to increase towards the end of the 21st century. Despite explicit trends, large variations have been observed across basins and regions when it comes to precipitation and floods hinting at a strong natural hydroclimatic variability that further complicates any assessment of potential future changes. In this study, we aim to better understand how climate variability links with the current extremes and future projections of floods in Norway in the context of the last millennium and the future. Specifically, we simulate over 1000 years (850–2099) daily discharge and floods at 34 catchments over five regions of Norway from the last millennium (including a warm period and a cold period; 850–1849) to the end of the 21st century by an ensemble model-chain method including four global climate models (GCMs), two bias-correction methods and two hydrological models. The modelling results show (i) all GCMs except MIROC-ESM simulate a higher mean temperature in Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) period than Little Ice Age (LIA) period, while simulated annual precipitation varies a lot in different GCMs and catchments, (ii) no significant change of flood characteristics during the last millennium from ensemble-mean results, (iii) in future, we will have an extraordinary shift in flood seasonality and generating processes, and flood frequency increase in most of the study catchments in Norway, and (iv) climate projections represent the largest contribution to overall uncertainty in the projected changes in hydrological extremes for most of the catchments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]