Impacts of boreal hydroelectric reservoirs on seasonal climate and precipitation recycling as simulated by the CRCM5: a case study of the La Grande River watershed, Canada

Located in northern Quebec, Canada, eight hydroelectric reservoirs of a 9782-km² maximal area cover 6.4% of the La Grande watershed. This study investigates the changes brought by the impoundment of these reservoirs on seasonal climate and precipitation recycling. Two 30-year climate simulations, corresponding to pre- and post-impoundment conditions, were used. They were generated with the fifth-generation Canadian Regional Climate Model (CRCM5), fully coupled to a 1D lake model (FLake). Seasonal temperatures and annual energy budget were generally well reproduced by the model, except in spring when a cold bias, probably related to the overestimation of snow cover, was seen. The difference in 2-m temperature shows that reservoirs induce localized warming in winter (+0.7 ± 0.02 °C) and cooling in the summer (−0.3 ± 0.02 °C). The available energy at the surface increases throughout the year, mostly due to a decrease in surface albedo. Fall latent and sensible heat fluxes are enhanced due to additional energy storage and availability in summer and spring. The changes in precipitation and runoff are within the model internal variability. At the watershed scale, reservoirs induce an additional evaporation of only 5.9 mm year−1 (2%). We use Brubaker’s precipitation recycling model to estimate how much of the precipitation is recycled within the watershed. In both simulations, the maximal precipitation recycling occurs in July (less than 6%), indicating weak land-atmosphere coupling. Reservoirs do not seem to affect this coupling, as precipitation recycling only decreased by 0.6% in July.