ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Water
Sec. Water and Climate
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/frwa.2025.1624694
This article is part of the Research TopicAdvances in Socio-hydrology for Building Resilience to a Changing ClimateView all 6 articles
Extreme Flood Intensification in the Pearl River Basin in the Future under 1.5°C, 2.0°C, and Higher Global Warming Levels
Provisionally accepted
- Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou, China
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The Pearl River Basin (PRB) is a vital economic hub in China, and sustains agriculture, industry, and regional water security for over 80 million people. While prior research has focused narrowly on flood frequency, flood impacts, or localized risk reduction, comprehensive assessments of extreme floods under critical global warming thresholds (1.5°C, 2.0°C and beyond) remain unexplored in PRB. Employing the WEB-DHM-SG model driven by ISIMIP3b bias-adjusted climate projections, this study analyzed extreme flood changes throughout the Pearl River Basin under incremental global warming levels from 1.5°C to 4.5°C (0.5°C intervals) for SSP126, SSP370, and SSP585 scenarios. Results show that, relative to the historical baseline (1985-2014), extreme floods across the PRB increase by 44-50% during the near future (2036-2065) and 57-68% in the far future (2071-2100), with the most pronounced escalations under higher emissions (SSP585). Sub-basin analyses reveal spatial heterogeneity in the timing and degree of increase. For example, at Boluo Station (Dongjiang sub-basin), extreme floods exhibit a biphasic response, declining initially then rising sharply by the far future. At Gaoyao Station (Xijiang sub-basin), extreme floods show a near-monotonic increase, with a slight reduction under SSP585. In contrast, at Shijiao Station (Beijiang sub-basin), extreme floods display a consistent upward trend across all scenarios.Furthermore, each 0.5°C increment of global warming significantly amplifies discharge, especially at Xijiang (largest absolute increase) and Dongjiang (highest relative increase, 7% per 0.5°C). These differential responses highlight the critical need for tailored adaptation measures, particularly infrastructure enhancements in the more sensitive Xijiang and Dongjiang sub-basins.
Keywords: Pearl River Basin, WEB-DHM-SG, Climate Change, Floods, Global warming levels
Received: 07 May 2025; Accepted: 11 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Qi, Huang, Cai and Tan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Wei Qi, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou, China
Ruiting Huang, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou, China
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