scholarly journals Probable streamflow changes and its associated risk to the water resources of Abuan watershed, Philippines caused by climate change and land use changes

Author(s):  
Arnan Araza ◽  
Maricon Perez ◽  
Rex Victor Cruz ◽  
Larlyn Faith Aggabao ◽  
Eugene Soyosa

AbstractOne of the main impact areas of climate change (CC), and land use and land cover change (LULCC) is the hydrology of watersheds, which have negative implications to the water resources. Their impact can be indicated by changes on streamflow, which is quantifiable using process-based streamflow modelling of baseline and future scenarios. Here we include the uncertainty and associated risk of the streamflow changes for a robust impact assessment to agriculture. We created a baseline model and models of CC and LULCC “impact scenarios” that use: (1) the new climate projections until 2070 and (2) land cover scenarios worsened by forest loss, in a critical watershed in the Philippines. Simulations of peak flows by 26% and low flows by 63% from the baseline model improved after calibrating runoff, soil evaporation, and groundwater parameters. Using the calibrated model, impacts of both CC and LULCC in 2070 were indicated by water deficit (− 18.65%) from May to August and water surplus (12.79%) from November to December. Both CC and LULCC contributed almost equally to the deficit, but the surplus was more LULCC-driven. Risk from CC may affect 9.10% of the croplands equivalent to 0.31 million dollars, while both CC and LULCC doubled the croplands at risk (19.13%, 0.60 million dollars) in one cropping season. The findings warn for the inevitable cropping schedule adjustments in the coming decades, which both apply to irrigated and rainfed crops, and may have implications to crop yields. This study calls for better watershed management to mitigate the risk to crop production and even potential flood risks.


Climate ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (7) ◽  
pp. 83
Author(s):  
Geofrey Gabiri ◽  
Bernd Diekkrüger ◽  
Kristian Näschen ◽  
Constanze Leemhuis ◽  
Roderick van der Linden ◽  
...  

The impact of climate and land use/land cover (LULC) change continues to threaten water resources availability for the agriculturally used inland valley wetlands and their catchments in East Africa. This study assessed climate and LULC change impacts on the hydrological processes of a tropical headwater inland valley catchment in Uganda. The hydrological model Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was applied to analyze climate and LULC change impacts on the hydrological processes. An ensemble of six regional climate models (RCMs) from the Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment for two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs), RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, were used for climate change assessment for historical (1976–2005) and future climate (2021–2050). Four LULC scenarios defined as exploitation, total conservation, slope conservation, and protection of headwater catchment were considered. The results indicate an increase in precipitation by 7.4% and 21.8% of the annual averages in the future under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, respectively. Future wet conditions are more pronounced in the short rainy season than in the long rainy season. Flooding intensity is likely to increase during the rainy season with low flows more pronounced in the dry season. Increases in future annual averages of water yield (29.0% and 42.7% under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, respectively) and surface runoff (37.6% and 51.8% under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, respectively) relative to the historical simulations are projected. LULC and climate change individually will cause changes in the inland valley hydrological processes, but more pronounced changes are expected if the drivers are combined, although LULC changes will have a dominant influence. Adoption of total conservation, slope conservation and protection of headwater catchment LULC scenarios will significantly reduce climate change impacts on water resources in the inland valley. Thus, if sustainable climate-smart management practices are adopted, the availability of water resources for human consumption and agricultural production will increase.



Author(s):  
E. Ramadan ◽  
T. Al-Awadhi ◽  
Y. Charabi

The study of land cover/land use dynamics under climate change conditions is of great significance for improving sustainable ecological management. Understanding the relationships between land cover and land use changes and climate change is thus very important. Understanding the interactive and cumulative effects of climate and land-use changes are a priority for urban planners and policy makers. The present investigation is based on Landsat satellite imagery to explore changes in vegetation spatial distribution between the years from 2000 to2018 The methodology is focused on vegetation indexes tracking and algebraic overlay calculation to analyzed vegetation and their spatial differentiation, land cover change pattern, and the relationships between vegetation dynamics and land cover change in Dhofar Governorate. The study results have revealed that the vegetation vigor is lower in all years compared to 2000. The scene of 2010 shows the minimum vegetation vigor, overall. Besides, the investigation shows a statistical relationship between rainfall and the status of the health of vegetation. Monsoon rainfall has an impact of the growth of vegetation. Between 2012 and 2013, the vegetation activity shows a decreasing trend. The analysis diagnoses an area affected by the worst degree of aridity situated in the southeastern of Dhofar Mountains. Climate change is the main driving factor resulted from both human activities and rainfall fluctuation.



Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 1790 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Afzal ◽  
Ragab Ragab

Although the climate change projections are produced by global models, studying the impact of climatic change on water resources is commonly investigated at catchment scale where the measurements are taken, and water management decisions are made. For this study, the Frome catchment in the UK was investigated as an example of midland England. The DiCaSM model was applied using the UKCP09 future climate change scenarios. The climate projections indicate that the greatest decrease in groundwater recharge and streamflow was projected under high emission scenarios in the 2080s. Under the medium and high emission scenarios, model results revealed that the frequency and severity of drought events would be the highest. The drought indices, the Reconnaissance Drought Index, RDI, Soil Moisture Deficit, SMD and Wetness Index, WI, predicted an increase in the severity of future drought events under the high emission scenarios. Increasing broadleaf forest area would decrease streamflow and groundwater recharge. Urban expansion could increase surface runoff. Decreasing winter barley and grass and increasing oil seed rape, would increase SMD and slightly decrease river flow. Findings of this study are helpful in the planning and management of the water resources considering the impact of climate and land use changes on variability in the availability of surface and groundwater resources.



2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (24) ◽  
pp. 7083 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristian Näschen ◽  
Bernd Diekkrüger ◽  
Mariele Evers ◽  
Britta Höllermann ◽  
Stefanie Steinbach ◽  
...  

Many parts of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are prone to land use and land cover change (LULCC). In many cases, natural systems are converted into agricultural land to feed the growing population. However, despite climate change being a major focus nowadays, the impacts of these conversions on water resources, which are essential for agricultural production, is still often neglected, jeopardizing the sustainability of the socio-ecological system. This study investigates historic land use/land cover (LULC) patterns as well as potential future LULCC and its effect on water quantities in a complex tropical catchment in Tanzania. It then compares the results using two climate change scenarios. The Land Change Modeler (LCM) is used to analyze and to project LULC patterns until 2030 and the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) is utilized to simulate the water balance under various LULC conditions. Results show decreasing low flows by 6–8% for the LULC scenarios, whereas high flows increase by up to 84% for the combined LULC and climate change scenarios. The effect of climate change is stronger compared to the effect of LULCC, but also contains higher uncertainties. The effects of LULCC are more distinct, although crop specific effects show diverging effects on water balance components. This study develops a methodology for quantifying the impact of land use and climate change and therefore contributes to the sustainable management of the investigated catchment, as it shows the impact of environmental change on hydrological extremes (low flow and floods) and determines hot spots, which are critical for environmental development.



Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 1801 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wakjira Takala Dibaba ◽  
Tamene Adugna Demissie ◽  
Konrad Miegel

Land use/land cover (LULC) and climate change affect the availability of water resources by altering the magnitude of surface runoff, aquifer recharge, and river flows. The evaluation helps to identify the level of water resources exposure to the changes that could help to plan for potential adaptive capacity. In this research, Cellular Automata (CA)-Markov in IDRISI software was used to predict the future LULC scenarios and the ensemble mean of four regional climate models (RCMs) in the coordinated regional climate downscaling experiment (CORDEX)-Africa was used for the future climate scenarios. Distribution mapping was used to bias correct the RCMs outputs, with respect to the observed precipitation and temperature. Then, the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model was used to evaluate the watershed hydrological responses of the catchment under separate, and combined, LULC and climate change. The result shows the ensemble mean of the four RCMs reported precipitation decline and increase in future temperature under both representative concentration pathways (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5). The increases in both maximum and minimum temperatures are higher for higher emission scenarios showing that RCP8.5 projection is warmer than RCP4.5. The changes in LULC brings an increase in surface runoff and water yield and a decline in groundwater, while the projected climate change shows a decrease in surface runoff, groundwater and water yield. The combined study of LULC and climate change shows that the effect of the combined scenario is similar to that of climate change only scenario. The overall decline of annual flow is due to the decline in the seasonal flows under combined scenarios. This could bring the reduced availability of water for crop production, which will be a chronic issue of subsistence agriculture. The possibility of surface water and groundwater reduction could also affect the availability of water resources in the catchment and further aggravate water stress in the downstream. The highly rising demands of water, owing to socio-economic progress, population growth and high demand for irrigation water downstream, in addition to the variability temperature and evaporation demands, amplify prolonged water scarcity. Consequently, strong land-use planning and climate-resilient water management policies will be indispensable to manage the risks.



Author(s):  
Jonathan A. Foley ◽  
Christopher J. Kucharik ◽  
Tracy E. Twine ◽  
Michael T. Coe ◽  
Simon D. Donner


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (04) ◽  
pp. 1950015
Author(s):  
BORIS O. K. LOKONON ◽  
AKLESSO Y. G. EGBENDEWE ◽  
NAGA COULIBALY ◽  
CALVIN ATEWAMBA

This paper investigates the impact of climate change on agriculture in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). To that end, a bio-economic model is built and calibrated on 2004 base year dataset and the potential impact is evaluated on land use and crop production under two representative concentration pathways coupled with three socio-economic scenarios. The findings suggest that land use change may depend on crop types and prevailing future conditions. As of crop production, the results show that paddy rice, oilseeds, sugarcane, cocoa, coffee, and sesame production could experience a decline under both moderate and harsh climate conditions in most cases. Also, doubling crop yields by 2050 could overall mitigate the negative impact of moderate climate change. The magnitude and the direction of the impacts may vary in space and time.



2009 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 467-480 ◽  
Author(s):  
Virginia H. Dale ◽  
Karen O. Lannom ◽  
M. Lynn Tharp ◽  
Donald G. Hodges ◽  
Jonah Fogel

Model projections suggest that both climate and land-use changes have large effects on forest biomass and composition in the Cumberland forests of Tennessee and Kentucky. These forests have high levels of diversity, ecological importance, land-use changes, and pressures due to invasive herbivorous insects and climate change. Three general circulation models project warming for all months in 2030 and 2080 and complex patterns of precipitation change. Climate changes from 1980 to 2100 were developed from these projections and used in the forest ecosystem model LINKAGES to estimate transient changes in forest biomass and species composition over time. These projections show that climate changes can instigate a decline in forest stand biomass and then recovery as forest species composition shifts. In addition, a landscape model (LSCAP) estimates changes in land-cover types of the Cumberlands based on projected land-use changes and the demise of eastern hemlock ( Tsuga canadensis (L.) Carrière) due to the spread of the hemlock adelgid ( Adelges tsugae Annand). LSCAP suggests that land-cover changes can be quite large and can cause a decline not only in the area of forested lands but also in the size and number of large contiguous forest patches that are necessary habitat for many forest species characteristic of the Cumberlands.



Author(s):  
Kashif Haleem ◽  
Afed Ullah Khan ◽  
Sohail Ahmad ◽  
Mansoor Khan ◽  
Fayaz Ahmad Khan ◽  
...  

Abstract Investigating the effects of climate and land-use changes on surface runoff is critical for water resources management. The majority of studies focused on projected climate change effects on surface runoff, while neglecting future land-use change. Therefore, the main aim of this article is to discriminate the impacts of projected climate and land-use changes on surface runoff using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) through the lens of the Upper Indus Basin, Pakistan. Future scenarios of the land-use and climate changes are predicted using cellular automata artificial neural network and four bias-corrected general circulation models, respectively. The historical record (2000–2013) was divided into the calibration period (2000–2008) and the validation period (2009–2013). The simulated results demonstrated that the SWAT model performed well. The results obtained from 2000 to 2013 show that climate change (61.61%) has a higher influence on river runoff than land-use change (38.39%). Both climate and land-use changes are predicted to increase future runoff depth in this basin. The influence of climate change (12.76–25.92%) is greater than land-use change (0.37–1.1%). Global weather data has good applicability for simulating hydrological responses in the region where conventional gauges are unavailable. The study discusses that both climate and land-use changes impact runoff depth and concluded some suggestions for water resources managers to bring water environment sustainability.



2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saula Minga-León ◽  
Miguel Angel Gómez-Albores ◽  
Khalidou M. Bâ ◽  
Luis Balcázar ◽  
Luis Ricardo Manzano-Solís ◽  
...  

Abstract. Humans greatly benefit from natural water resources, also known as hydrological ecosystem services. However, these services may be reduced by population growth, land use changes, and climate change. As these problems become more critical, the need to quantify water resources increases. The estimation of water yield and its distribution are of great importance for the management of water resources. In the present study, the average annual water yield of the hydrographic basins in the southern region of Ecuador was estimated for the 1970–2015 period using the InVEST water yield model based on the Budyko framework. The model estimates annual surface run-off at the pixel, sub-basin, and basin level considering the following variables: precipitation, actual evapotranspiration, land cover/use, soil depth, and available water content for plants. The model was calibrated by varying the ecohydrological parameter Z to reduce error between estimated and observed water yield. The results showed that the modeling of water yield in the majority of the hydrographic basins was satisfactory, allowing the basins to be ranked according to their importance for water production. The Mayo and Zamora basins had the highest water production, corresponding with 934 and 1218 mm per year, respectively, while the Alamor and Catamayo basins had the lowest water production, corresponding with 206 and 291 mm per year, respectively. The present study provides an initial estimate of water yield at the basin level in the southern region of Ecuador, and the results can be used to evaluate the impacts of land cover changes and climate change over time.



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