scholarly journals Effect of land use/land cover and climate changes on surface runoff in a semi-humid and semi-arid transition zone in Northwest China

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Yin ◽  
Fan He ◽  
YuJiu Xiong ◽  
GuoYu Qiu
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Water Resources ◽  
Land Cover ◽  
Transition Zone ◽  
Surface Runoff ◽  
Climate Changes ◽  
Northwest China ◽  
Land Use Land Cover ◽  
Lulc Change ◽  
Semi Arid

Abstract. Water resources, which are substantially affected by land use/land cover (LULC) and climate changes, are a key limiting factor for ecosystems in arid and semi-arid regions exhibiting high vulnerability. It is crucial to assess the impact of LULC and climate changes on water resources in these areas. However, conflicting results on the effect of the LULC and climate changes on runoff have been reported for relatively large basins, e.g., in the Jinghe River Basin (JRB), a typical large catchment (> 45000 km2) located in a semi-humid and arid transition zone on the central Loess Plateau, Northwest China. In this study, we focused on quantifying both the combined and isolated impacts of LULC and climate changes on surface runoff. It is hypothesized that under climatic warming and drying conditions, LULC change, which is primarily caused by intensive human activities, such as the conversion of cropland to forest and grassland program (CCFGP), will alter runoff markedly in the JRB. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was adopted to perform simulations. The simulated results indicated that although runoff increased very little between the 1970s and the 2000s due to the combined effects of LULC and climate changes, LULC and climate changes affected surface runoff differently in each decade, i.e., runoff increased with elevated precipitation between the 1970s and the 1980s (precipitation contributed 88 % to the increased runoff). Thereafter, runoff decreased and became increasingly influenced by LULC change, with a 44 % contribution between the 1980s and the 1990s and a 71 % contribution between the 1990s and the 2000s. Our findings revealed that large-scale LULC under the CCFGP since the late 1990s has had an important effect on the hydrological cycle and that the conflicting findings on the effect of the LULC and climate changes on runoff in relatively large basins are likely caused by uncertainty in hydrological simulations.

scholarly journals Effects of land use/land cover and climate changes on surface runoff in a semi-humid and semi-arid transition zone in northwest China

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 183-196 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Yin ◽  
Fan He ◽  
Yu Jiu Xiong ◽  
Guo Yu Qiu
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Water Resources ◽  
Land Cover ◽  
Surface Runoff ◽  
Climate Changes ◽  
Northwest China ◽  
Land Use Land Cover ◽  
Grain For Green ◽  
Runoff Changes ◽  
Semi Arid

Abstract. Water resources, which are considerably affected by land use/land cover (LULC) and climate changes, are a key limiting factor in highly vulnerable ecosystems in arid and semi-arid regions. The impacts of LULC and climate changes on water resources must be assessed in these areas. However, conflicting results regarding the effects of LULC and climate changes on runoff have been reported in relatively large basins, such as the Jinghe River basin (JRB), which is a typical catchment (> 45 000 km2) located in a semi-humid and arid transition zone on the central Loess Plateau, northwest China. In this study, we focused on quantifying both the combined and isolated impacts of LULC and climate changes on surface runoff. We hypothesized that under climatic warming and drying conditions, LULC changes, which are primarily caused by intensive human activities such as the Grain for Green Program, will considerably alter runoff in the JRB. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was adopted to perform simulations. The simulated results indicated that although runoff increased very little between the 1970s and the 2000s due to the combined effects of LULC and climate changes, LULC and climate changes affected surface runoff differently in each decade, e.g., runoff increased with increased precipitation between the 1970s and the 1980s (precipitation contributed to 88 % of the runoff increase). Thereafter, runoff decreased and was increasingly influenced by LULC changes, which contributed to 44 % of the runoff changes between the 1980s and 1990s and 71 % of the runoff changes between the 1990s and 2000s. Our findings revealed that large-scale LULC under the Grain for Green Program has had an important effect on the hydrological cycle since the late 1990s. Additionally, the conflicting findings regarding the effects of LULC and climate changes on runoff in relatively large basins are likely caused by uncertainties in hydrological simulations.

scholarly journals Hydrological Responses of Watershed to Historical and Future Land Use Land Cover Change Dynamics of Nashe Watershed, Ethiopia

Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (17) ◽  
pp. 2372
Author(s):  
Megersa Kebede Leta ◽  
Tamene Adugna Demissie ◽  
Jens Tränckner
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Water Resources ◽  
Land Cover ◽  
Surface Runoff ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Swat Model ◽  
Land Resource ◽  
Land Use Land Cover ◽  
Lulc Change ◽  
Hydrological Parameters

Land use land cover (LULC) change is the crucial driving force that affects the hydrological processes of a watershed. The changes of LULC have an important influence and are the main factor for monitoring the water balances. The assessment of LULC change is indispensable for sustainable development of land and water resources. Understanding the watershed responses to environmental changes and impacts of LULC classes on hydrological components is vigorous for planning water resources, land resource utilization, and hydrological balance sustaining. In this study, LULC effects on hydrological parameters of the Nashe watershed, Blue Nile River Basin are investigated. For this, historical and future LULC change scenarios in the Nashe watershed are implemented into a calibrated Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model. Five LULC scenarios have been developed that represent baseline, current, and future periods corresponding to the map of 1990, 2005, 2019, 2035, and 2050. The predicted increase of agricultural and urban land by decreasing mainly forest land will lead till 2035 to an increase of 2.33% in surface runoff and a decline in ground water flow, lateral flow, and evapotranspiration. Between 2035 and 2050, a gradual increase of grass land and range land could mitigate the undesired tendency. The applied combination of LULC prognosis with process-based hydrologic modeling provide valuable data about the current and future understanding of variation in hydrological parameters and assist concerned bodies to improve land and water management in formulating approaches to minimize the conceivable increment of surface runoff.

scholarly journals Impact of Climate and Land Use/Land Cover Change on the Water Resources of a Tropical Inland Valley Catchment in Uganda, East Africa

Climate ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (7) ◽  
pp. 83
Author(s):  
Geofrey Gabiri ◽  
Bernd Diekkrüger ◽  
Kristian Näschen ◽  
Constanze Leemhuis ◽  
Roderick van der Linden ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Water Resources ◽  
Land Cover ◽  
Rainy Season ◽  
Hydrological Processes ◽  
Land Use Land Cover ◽  
Lulc Change ◽  
Inland Valley ◽  
Headwater Catchment

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.

scholarly journals Impact of Land Use Land Cover (LULC) Change on Surface Runoff in an Increasingly Urbanized Tropical Watershed

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (12) ◽  
pp. 4087-4103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ike Sari Astuti ◽  
Kamalakanta Sahoo ◽  
Adam Milewski ◽  
Deepak R. Mishra
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Land Cover ◽  
Surface Runoff ◽  
Land Use Land Cover ◽  
Lulc Change ◽  
Tropical Watershed

scholarly journals Watershed Hydrological Response to Combined Land Use/Land Cover and Climate Change in Highland Ethiopia: Finchaa Catchment

Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 1801 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wakjira Takala Dibaba ◽  
Tamene Adugna Demissie ◽  
Konrad Miegel
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Water Resources ◽  
Land Cover ◽  
Surface Runoff ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Water Yield ◽  
Land Use Land Cover ◽  
Ensemble Mean ◽  
The Future

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.

Hydrological modelling of Sahelian hydrological paradox: accounting for explicit land use/land cover change in the simulation of hydrological processes

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roland Yonaba ◽  
Angelbert Chabi Biaou ◽  
Mahamadou Koita ◽  
Tazen Fowé ◽  
Adjadi Lawani Mounirou ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Water Resources ◽  
Land Cover ◽  
Burkina Faso ◽  
Surface Runoff ◽  
Hydrological Modelling ◽  
Integrated Modelling ◽  
Annual Rainfall ◽  
Land Use Land Cover ◽  
Lulc Changes

<p>Land use/land cover (LULC) change is a major factor affecting the hydrological response at the watershed scale. However, hydrological modelling, in its current practice, is usually carried using a single and static LULC layer for simulation runs over long periods. Eventually, this approach leads to failure in accounting for LULC spatial and temporal changes as well as non-linear impacts on simulated outputs. Besides, in the typical case of Sahelian hydrosystems, previous modelling attempts based on this approach failed at reproducing the well-known Sahelian hydrological paradox which occurred in the area during the period 1970-1990. This study aims at assessing the added value of dynamical integration of LULC changes in hydrological modelling of surface runoff in Sahelian hydrosystems. The Tougou watershed (37 km²), located in Northern Burkina Faso is selected as a case study. LULC maps of the watershed are produced from 1952 to 2017 from the processing of Landsat satellite images. The SWAT (Soil & Water Assessment Tool) model, using the SCS-CN method (for surface runoff estimation), is calibrated and validated using observed runoff data collected over the period 2004-2018. The calibration/validation is carried using LULC maps of the watershed in 1999, 2009 and 2017, dynamically integrated into the model using a specific land use update module. Further, the calibrated model parameters helped in the reconstitution of surface runoff over the historical period 1952-2005 and integrating dynamically LULC maps in 1952, 1973, 1986 and 1999. The results showed that between the periods 1952-1968 (P1) and 1986-2005 (P3), the average annual rainfall decreased by 87.9 mm while paradoxically, average annual runoff increased by 1 mm. Further analysis revealed that the increase in runoff is mainly attributed to LULC changes (+647%) which offsets the effect of the decrease in rainfall (-547%). From the analysis of LULC maps, it was found that from P1 to P3 periods, the decrease in natural vegetation (CN = 67.3 ± 5.7) by 40%, replaced by bare and degraded soils (CN = 83.8 ± 2.5) explained the observed increase in surface runoff potential of the watershed, as shown by their calibrated CN values. These findings are reminiscent of the Sahelian hydrological paradox reported in the literature and provide evidence of the sensitivity of surface runoff to LULC changes. Overall, the results call to hydrologists, water resources planners and managers, regarding the advantages of coupling LULC changes in hydrological modelling. Also, the study advocates for the development of integrated modelling platforms integrating both LULC changes and hydrological modelling to allow a better understanding and the more accurate long-term forecasting of water resources, in particular in the case of Sahelian hydrosystems.</p><p><strong>Keywords:</strong> Dynamic LULC input, Hydrological modelling, Surface runoff, SWAT model, Burkina Faso, Sahelian paradox.</p>

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