Natural ecosystems are generally driven by climatic patterns of a region that can be quantified by understanding the patterns in hydro meteorological variables, such as temperature, precipitation, humidity, and wind. Climate change is defined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as changes in the state of the climate that can be indentified by changes in its properties and that persist for an extended period, typically decade or longer, due to natural internal processes or external forcing or to persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use. Another definition, this one by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is as follows: “a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods.’’ The American Meteorological Society glossary (AMS Glossary) defines climate change as “any systematic change in the long-term statistics of climate elements (such as temperature, pressure, or winds) sustained over several decades or longer. Climate change may be due to natural external forcings, such as changes in solar emissions or slow changes in the Earth’s orbital elements; natural internal processes of the climate system; or anthropogenic forcing.”
The phenomenon of climate change may appears in the form of rising temperatures, melting glaciers, changes in the rainfall regime, and changes in the rainy season and increasing the volume of runoff and floods. Afghanistan is one the countries that most suffered from these changes, actually Parts of glaciers in the Hindu Kush Mountains in Badakhshan, Panjshir and other highlands have melted due to the the increase in temperature that cause heavy floods in the northern, central and western provinces of the country.
As the climate change is relatively a new topic and due to the lack of the research on the climate change effects on different aspects of water resouarces, for example urban water management, groundwater, and surface water, the founders of the WGRA are determined to make the issue of climate change one of the research priorities of the association and try to fill this research gap. Fortunately, the Water and Geotechnical Research Association (WGRA) is working on several research projects in this area.