Climate change has a potential to impact hydrologic cycle processes, such as rainfall, which affect run-off, temperature and air humidity that have relationship to evaporation over water bodies and plant evapotranspiration. The purpose of this study was to assess impacts of climate change on irrigation water demand of banana, at the river basin level (Jaguaribe river, between Castanhão and Itaiçaba Dams). A climate data set was generated by a climate model for 1961-90 (baseline) and the future. The output climate data has been generated, considering a georreferenced coordenated system of the study area in a 0.44 x 0.44º resolution, generating spatial distribution output for each variable. The reference evapotranspiration has been estimated using monthly average temperature and projected an increase in mean water requirements for 2040 in relation to initial conditions from 1.989 mm to 2.536 mm and 2.491 mm (27.50 and 25.24%) for A2 and B2 scenarios, developed by Intergovernamental Panel on Climate Change, respectively.
GIS; evapotranspiration; irrigation
