Download or read book Exploring the Impact of Climate and Land Cover Change on Regional Hydrology in a Snowmelt dominated Watershed written by Amy Steimke and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Seasonally snow-dominated, mountainous watersheds supply water to many human populations globally. However, the timing and magnitude of water delivery from these watersheds has already and will continue to change as climate is altered. Associated changes in watershed vegetation cover further affect the runoff responses of watersheds, from altering evapotranspiration rates to changing surface energy fluxes, and there exists a need to incorporate land cover change in hydrologic modeling studies. However, few land cover projections exist at the scale needed for watershed studies, and current models may be unable to simulate key interactions that occur between land cover and hydrologic processes. To help address this gap in the literature, we explored the impacts of climate and land cover change on hydrologic regimes in the Upper Boise River Basin, Idaho. Using a multiagent simulation framework, Envision, we built a hydrologic model, calibrated it to historic streamflow and snowpack observations, and ran it to year 2100 under six diverse climate scenarios. Under present land cover conditions, average annual discharge increased by midcentury (2040-2069) with 13% more runoff than historical (1950-2009) across all climate scenarios, with ranges from 6-24% of increase. Runoff timing was altered, with center of timing of streamflow occurring 4-17 days earlier by midcentury. Our modeled snowpack was more sensitive to warming at lower elevations, and maximum snow water equivalent decreased and occurred 13-44 days earlier by midcentury. Utilizing metrics applicable to local water managers, we see the date that junior water rights holders begin to be curtailed up to 14 days earlier across all models by the end of the century, with one model showing this could occur over a month earlier. These results suggest that current methods of water rights accounting and management may need to be revised moving into the future. To test the sensitivity of our hydrologic model to changes in land cover, we selected a projected future land cover from the FORE-SCE (FOREcasting SCEnarios of land-use change) model. Our future land cover produced less evapotranspiration and more runoff, which stemmed from misclassification of high elevation regions between the FORE-SCE model and our initial land cover dataset, due to changes in the NLCD (National Land Cover Database) classification methodology. Additionally, FORE-SCE does not explicitly model wildfire or vegetative response to climate, both of which will likely be major drivers of landscape change in the mountainous, forested, western U.S., potentially making it insufficient for land cover projections in these areas. With evapotranspiration being the only parameter changing between land cover types in our hydrologic model, we were unable to capture the totality of hydrologic response to land cover change and other models may be better suited for such studies. This study highlights the necessity for better land cover projections in natural ecosystems that are attuned to both natural (e.g., climate, disturbance) and anthropogenic (e.g. management, invasive species) drivers of change, as well as better feedback in hydrologic models between the land surface and hydrological processes."--Boise State University ScholarWorks.
Download or read book Assessing the Impacts of Climate Change on Fluvial Processes written by Robert Baidoc and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Watershed models are an important tool in regional planning and conservation efforts. They can provide valuable insight into the potential impacts of different land use changes and future climate change scenarios on water resources, which can lead to better, more informed decision making. Climate impacts, in particular, add a new level of uncertainty with regard to freshwater supplies as the hydrological cycle is intimately linked with changes in atmospheric temperatures. The main objective of this study is to investigate the extent of long-term climate change on streamflow and stream temperature within an agriculturally defined watershed in Northern Ontario. For this purpose, the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model was utilized to provide a better understanding of how hydrological processes in the Slate River Watershed will alter in response to long-term climate change scenarios. The SWAT model is a distributed/semi-distributed physically-based continuous model, developed by the USDA for the management of agricultural watersheds, and is currently one of the most popular watershed-based models used in climate change analysis of snowmelt dominated watersheds. Historic flow data was compared to a discharge model that reflected four climate models driven by SRES A1B and A2 through the middle and end of the century. Hydrology modelling was enhanced with stream temperature analysis to gain a comprehensive understanding of the extent of changing climate regimes on the Slate River. A linear regression approach representing a positive relationship between stream temperature and air temperature was used to determine the thermal classification of the Slate River. Our results indicated that the Slate River was well within the warm-water character regime. Unusual high stream temperatures were recorded at mid- August; these were accompanied by low water levels and a lack of riparian vegetative cover at the recording site, providing a possible explanation for such temperature anomalies. The results of the flow discharge modelling supported our hypothesis that tributaries within our ecosystem would experience increasing water stress in a warming climate as the average total discharge from the Slate River decreased in both climate scenarios at the middle and end of the century. Although the lack of accurate subsurface soil data within the study region prevented our discharge model from quantifying the changes in stream discharge, the strong correlation between the observed and simulated flow data as reflected by a 0.92 r2 statistic gave us confidence that discharge from the Slate River will continue to follow a decreasing trend as climate change persists into the future. This study aims to support the future endeavours of hydrologic modelling of watersheds in Northern Ontario by illustrating the current capabilities and limits of climate change analysis studies within this region.
Download or read book Climate Change and Land Use Cover Change Impacts on Watershed Hydrology Nutrient Dynamics a Case Study in Missisquoi River Watershed written by Linyuan Shang and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Watershed regulation of water, carbon and nutrient dynamics support food, drinking water and human development. Projected climate changes and land use/cover change (LUCC) have been identified as drivers of watershed nutrient and hydrological processes and are likely to happen jointly in the future decades. Studying climate change and LUCC impacts on watersheds' streamflow and nutrients dynamics is therefore essential for future watershed management. This research aimed to unveil how climate change and LUCC affect water and nutrient dynamics in the Missisquoi River watershed, Vermont. We used 12 scenarios of future climate data (2021 - 2050) generated by three GCMs (ccsm4, mri-cgcm3, and gfdl-esm2m) under four Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). For LUCC, we used three different scenarios generated by the Interactive Land Use Transition Agent-Based Model (ILUTABM). The three LUCC scenarios were Business As Usual (BAU), Prefer Forest (proForest), and Prefer Agriculture (proAg). New land use maps were generated every 10 years for the period of 2021 - 2050. Combining each climate change and LUCC scenario resulted in 36 scenarios that were used to drive Regional Hydro-Ecologic Simulation System (RHESSys) ecohydrological model. In chapter 3, we used RHESSys to study streamflow. We found climate was the main driver for streamflow because climate change directly controlled the system water input. For streamflow, climate change scenarios had larger impacts than LUCC, different LUCCs under the same climate change scenario had similar annual flow patterns. In chapter 4, we used RHESSys to study streamflow NO3-N and NH4-N load. Because fertilizer application is the major source for nitrogen export, LUCC had larger impacts; watersheds with more agricultural land had larger nitrogen loads. In chapter 5, we developed RHESSys-P by coupling the DayCent phosphorus module with RHESSys to study climate change and LUCC impacts on Dissolved Phosphorus (DP) load. RHESSys-P was calibrated with observed DP data for 2002 - 2004 and validated with data for 2009 - 2010. In both calibration and validation periods, simulated DP basically captured patterns of observed DP. In the validation period, the R2 of simulated vs observed DP was 0.788. Future projection results indicated BAU and proForest annual loads were around 4.0 x 104 kg under all climate change scenarios; proAg annual loads increased from around 4.0 x 104 kg in 2021 to 1.6 x 105 kg in 2050 under all climate change scenarios. The results showed LUCC was the dominant factor for dissolved phosphorus loading. Overall, our results suggest that, while climate drives streamflow, N and P fluxes are largely driven by land use and management decisions. To balance human development and environmental quality, BAU is a feasible future development strategy.
Download or read book Hydrology in a Changing World written by Shailesh Kumar Singh and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-02-18 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a comprehensive overview of the challenges in hydrological modeling. Hydrology, on both a local and global scale, has undergone dramatic changes, largely due to variations in climate, population growth and the associated land-use and land-cover changes. Written by experts in the field, the book provides decision-makers with a better understanding of the science, impacts, and consequences of these climate and land-use changes on hydrology. Further, offering insights into how the changing behavior of hydrological processes, related uncertainties and their evolution affect the modeling process, it is of interest for all researchers and practitioners using hydrological modeling.
Download or read book Regional Scale Modeling of Climate Cryosphere and Freshwater Discharge in Changing Coastal Mountain Environments written by Jordan P. Beamer and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The glaciated coastal mountain watersheds that drain into the Gulf of Alaska (GOA) provide a model laboratory to explore the challenges of hydrological modeling and study the impact of climate and glacier cover change on regional hydrology. The region is data-sparse and contains a complex assemblage of topography and land cover, including a system of mountain glaciers that are retreating at some of the highest rates on Earth. The high rates of runoff from precipitation and glacial melt delivered by coastal rivers influence ocean circulation patterns, rates of global sea level rise, and provide spawning habitat for the large salmon populations. Physically-based hydrological modeling of the major water budget components of the GOA, driven using historical reanalysis weather data and land cover, reveals that the modeled water budget components, particularly precipitation input, vary widely between commonly-used weather products. The majority of the large freshwater flux into the GOA is derived from distributed coastal streams rather than the large inland rivers. The modeled seasonal aggregated GOA hydrograph is dominated by the spring and early summer snowmelt, and supplemented by late summer glacial ice melt. Model results demonstrate good agreement with NASA Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite data in terms of annual amplitudes and long term losses (ice loss), and suggest that existing GRACE solutions, previously reported to represent glacier mass balance alone, are actually measuring the full water budget of land and ice surfaces. An ensemble of climate models and future emissions scenarios were paired with systematically altered land cover to test the sensitivity of the hydrologic system to changes in regional climate patterns and glacier coverage representative of late twenty first century conditions. Compared with the hindcast simulations, the model results forced with increased regional air temperatures and precipitation inputs and reduced glacier cover produce an increase in the annual GOA freshwater discharge volume. The seasonal GOA hydrograph is flattened due to increased winter runoff from more winter rainfall and less snow accumulation, and lower levels of snowmelt and glacier ice contribution. Large uncertainties exist in the direction of change in the glacier runoff component, primarily due to uncertainties that exist in predicting glacier response to climate change. Hydrological modeling with high resolution and inclusion of relevant physical processes can produce significantly improved products that are of high value to and in demand by numerous other scientific communities. However, the value and accuracy of the output from the hydrologic model is highly dependent on the weather forcing quality. Given the considerable importance of quality weather forcing for hydrologic modeling, it is imperative to assess the suitability of multiple products by evaluating local and regional performance and accounting for uncertainty. Additional efforts should be made to improve the spatial resolution of the reanalysis through downscaling and to strategically increase the number of weather stations at high elevations and incorporate that data into weather forcing datasets.
Download or read book A Case Study for Assessing the Hydrologic Impacts of Climate Change at the Watershed Scale written by Martinus Hubertus Brouwers and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 121 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the advent of the industrial era atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases have been on the rise leading to increasing global mean temperatures. Through increasing temperatures and changes to distributions of precipitation, climate change will intensify the hydrologic cycle which will directly impact surface water sources while the impacts to groundwater are reflected through changes in recharge to the water table. The IPCC (2001) reports that limited investigations have been conducted regarding the impacts of climate change to groundwater resources. The complexity of evaluating the hydrologic impacts of climate change requires the use of a numerical model. This thesis investigates the state of the science of conjunctive surface-subsurface water modeling with the aim of determining a suitable approach for conducting long-term transient simulations at the watershed scale. As a result of this investigation, a coupled modeling approach is adopted using HELP3 to simulate surface and vadose zone processes and HydroSphere to simulate saturated flow of groundwater. This approach is applied to the Alder Creek Watershed, which is a subwatershed of the Grand River Watershed and located near Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario. The Alder Creek Watershed is a suitable case study for the evaluation of climate change scenarios as it has been well characterized from previous studies and it is relatively small in size. Two contrasting scenarios of climate change (i.e., drier and wetter futures) are evaluated relative to a reference scenario that is based on the historical climatic record of the region. The simulation results show a strong impact upon the timing of hydrologic processes, shifting the spring snow melt to earlier in the year leading to an overall decrease in runoff and increase in infiltration for both drier and wetter future climate scenarios. Both climate change scenarios showed a marked increase to overall evapotranspiration which is most pronounced in the summer months. The impacts to groundwater are more subdued relative to surface water. This is attributed to the climate forcing perturbations being attenuated by the shift of the spring snow melt and the transient storage effects of the vadose zone, which can be significant given the hummocky terrain of the region. The simulation results show a small overall rise of groundwater elevations resulting from the simulated increase in infiltration for both climate change scenarios.
Download or read book Treatise on Geomorphology written by and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2013-02-27 with total page 6392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The changing focus and approach of geomorphic research suggests that the time is opportune for a summary of the state of discipline. The number of peer-reviewed papers published in geomorphic journals has grown steadily for more than two decades and, more importantly, the diversity of authors with respect to geographic location and disciplinary background (geography, geology, ecology, civil engineering, computer science, geographic information science, and others) has expanded dramatically. As more good minds are drawn to geomorphology, and the breadth of the peer-reviewed literature grows, an effective summary of contemporary geomorphic knowledge becomes increasingly difficult. The fourteen volumes of this Treatise on Geomorphology will provide an important reference for users from undergraduate students looking for term paper topics, to graduate students starting a literature review for their thesis work, and professionals seeking a concise summary of a particular topic. Information on the historical development of diverse topics within geomorphology provides context for ongoing research; discussion of research strategies, equipment, and field methods, laboratory experiments, and numerical simulations reflect the multiple approaches to understanding Earth’s surfaces; and summaries of outstanding research questions highlight future challenges and suggest productive new avenues for research. Our future ability to adapt to geomorphic changes in the critical zone very much hinges upon how well landform scientists comprehend the dynamics of Earth’s diverse surfaces. This Treatise on Geomorphology provides a useful synthesis of the state of the discipline, as well as highlighting productive research directions, that Educators and students/researchers will find useful. Geomorphology has advanced greatly in the last 10 years to become a very interdisciplinary field. Undergraduate students looking for term paper topics, to graduate students starting a literature review for their thesis work, and professionals seeking a concise summary of a particular topic will find the answers they need in this broad reference work which has been designed and written to accommodate their diverse backgrounds and levels of understanding Editor-in-Chief, Prof. J. F. Shroder of the University of Nebraska at Omaha, is past president of the QG&G section of the Geological Society of America and present Trustee of the GSA Foundation, while being well respected in the geomorphology research community and having won numerous awards in the field. A host of noted international geomorphologists have contributed state-of-the-art chapters to the work. Readers can be guaranteed that every chapter in this extensive work has been critically reviewed for consistency and accuracy by the World expert Volume Editors and by the Editor-in-Chief himself No other reference work exists in the area of Geomorphology that offers the breadth and depth of information contained in this 14-volume masterpiece. From the foundations and history of geomorphology through to geomorphological innovations and computer modelling, and the past and future states of landform science, no "stone" has been left unturned!
Download or read book Impacts of Land Cover and Climate Change on Water Resources in Suasco River Watershed written by Ammara Talib and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ABSTRACT IMPACTS OF LAND COVER AND CLIMATE CHANGE ON WATER RESOURCES IN SUASCO RIVER WATERSHED September 2015 AMMARA TALIB, BS., PUNJAB UNIVERSITY LAHORE MS., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Tim Randhir Hydrological balance and biogeochemical processes in watershed are significantly influenced by changes in land use land cover (LULC) and climate change. Those changes can influence interception, evapotranspiration (ET), infiltration, soil moisture, water balance and biogeochemical cycling of carbon, nitrogen and other elements at regional to global scales. The impacts of these hydrological disturbances are generally reflected in form of increasing runoff rate and volume, more intense and frequent floods, decreasing groundwater recharge and base flow, elevated levels of sediments and increase in concentration of nutrients in both streams and shallow groundwater. Water quality of Sudbury, Assabet and Concord (SuAsCo) watershed in Massachusetts is also compromised because of influx of runoff, sediments and nutrients. There is a crucial need to evaluate the synergistic effects of LULC change and climate change on the water quality and water quantity in a watershed system. A watershed simulation model is used to simulate hydrologic processes and water quality changes in sediment loads, total nitrogen (TN), and total phosphorus (TP). The model is calibrated and validated with field-measured data. Climatic scenarios are represented by downscaled regional projections from Global Climate Model (GCM) models and regional built out scenarios of LULC are used to assess the impacts of projected LULC and climate change on water quality and water quantity. Simultaneous changes in LULC and climate significantly affect the water resources in the SuAsCo River watershed. Change in climate increased ET (4.7 %) because of high temperature, but independent change in land cover reduced ET (6.5%) because of less available vegetation. Combined change in land cover and climate reduced ET (2.1%) overall, which indicates that land cover change has significant impact on ET. Change in climate increased total run off (6%) and this increase is more significant as compared to 2.7 % increase in total runoff caused by land cover change. Change in land cover increased surface runoff more significantly (69.2%) than 7.9 % increase caused by climate change. Combined change in land cover and climate further increased the average storm peak volume (12.8 percent) because of high precipitation and impervious area in future. There is a potential for reducing runoff, sediments and nutrients loads by using conservation policies and adaptation strategies. This research provides valuable information about the dynamics of watershed system, as well as the complex processes that impair water resources.
Download or read book Handbook of Climate Change Impacts on River Basin Management written by and published by . This book was released on 2024-05 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Climate change is an alarming issue that has affected the globe at multiple levels. It involves not only rising temperatures but also changes to the original hydro-meteorological parameters of a region and the corresponding changes emerging in the various biotic or abiotic environmental features. Changing landscapes have become quite visible, and one of the prominent results of climate change has been the impact on the sediment yield and its transport. These changes have implications for various other environmental components, particularly soils, water bodies, water quality, land productivity, sedimentation processes, glacier dynamics, and risk management strategies to name a few. Understanding recent changes in sediment yield impacts due to changing climate will enhance the field of water resources management as well as land conservation techniques. This handbook examines hydrology, watershed, soil erosion, global climate change scenarios, changing dynamics of streamflow and erosion, impact of changing sediment dynamics, major problems associated with change in the original sediment balance in nature, the latest computing technologies incorporated in the studies, risk control and management measures. It also includes case studies from various countries, which will help illustrate the problem of climate change, as well as introducing region-specific approaches"--
Download or read book Colorado River Basin Water Management written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2007-06-30 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent studies of past climate and streamflow conditions have broadened understanding of long-term water availability in the Colorado River, revealing many periods when streamflow was lower than at any time in the past 100 years of recorded flows. That information, along with two important trends-a rapid increase in urban populations in the West and significant climate warming in the region-will require that water managers prepare for possible reductions in water supplies that cannot be fully averted through traditional means. Colorado River Basin Water Management assesses existing scientific information, including temperature and streamflow records, tree-ring based reconstructions, and climate model projections, and how it relates to Colorado River water supplies and demands, water management, and drought preparedness. The book concludes that successful adjustments to new conditions will entail strong and sustained cooperation among the seven Colorado River basin states and recommends conducting a comprehensive basinwide study of urban water practices that can be used to help improve planning for future droughts and water shortages.
Download or read book Global Change and Extreme Hydrology written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2011-11-17 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Climate theory dictates that core elements of the climate system, including precipitation, evapotranspiration, and reservoirs of atmospheric and soil moisture, should change as the climate warms, both in their means and extremes. A major challenge that faces the climate and hydrologic science communities is understanding the nature of these ongoing changes in climate and hydrology and the apparent anomalies that exist in reconciling their extreme manifestations. The National Research Council (NRC) Committee on Hydrologic Science (COHS) held a workshop on January 5-6, 2010, that examined how climate warming translates into hydrologic extremes like floods and droughts. The workshop brought together three groups of experts. The first two groups consisted of atmospheric scientists and hydrologists focused on the scientific underpinnings and empirical evidence linking climate variability to hydrologic extremes. The third group consisted of water managers and decision-makers charged with the design and operation of water systems that in the future must be made resilient in light of a changing climate and an environment of hydrologic extremes. Global Change and Extreme Hydrology summarizes the proceedings of this workshop. This report presents an overview of the current state of the science in terms of climate change and extreme hydrologic events. It examines the "conventional wisdom" that climate change will "accelerate" the hydrologic cycle, fuel more evaporation, and generate more precipitation, based on an increased capacity of a warmer atmosphere to hold more water vapor. The report also includes descriptions of the changes in frequency and severity of extremes, the ability (or inability) to model these changes, and the problem of communicating the best science to water resources practitioners in useful forums.
Download or read book The Regional Impacts of Climate Change written by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Working Group II. and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cambridge, UK : Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Download or read book Climate Change Impacts on Snowmelt Driven Streamflow in the Grand River Watershed written by Amy Dietrich and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Climate change is one of the most significant global environmental drivers threatening the quality and quantity of future water resources. Global temperature increases will have significant effects on the hydrologic regime of northern regions due to changes in snowfall and snowmelt. Considerable research has been conducted in western Canada to rigorously quantify snowmelt-driven streamflow processes, however, less focus has been directed towards understanding these processes in eastern Canada and Ontario. In the southern Ontario Grand River Watershed (GRW), snowmelt contributions to streamflow (freshet) make up a significant portion of the annual water yield, and the period of snowmelt is also of key concern for flood mitigation. This thesis aims to quantify historical and projected changes to timing and streamflow during freshet in the Nith River, an unregulated tributary of the Grand River. Climate data (temperature, rainfall, snowfall, and snow proportion) from observations and future scenarios were analyzed to quantify the contributions of climate conditions surrounding the timing and volume of the freshet. The annual timing of snowmelt-driven streamflow was quantified using centre time (CT), and streamflow volumes were quantified by various percentiles of streamflow (Qn) during four periods of the water year (October-December, January-February, March-April, and May-September). Historical trends in streamflow and climate data were examined using hydrometric data (1914-2016) of a stream gauge from the Water Survey of Canada, and climate data (1950-2016) from Environment and Climate Change Canada at two stations. Projected climate data were from an ensemble of models used in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Fourth Assessment Report (AR4). A total of nine distinct models ran two scenarios from AR4 for the 2050s; moderate (B1) and high (A1B). These time-slice projections were then used to force the hydrologic model GAWSER to simulate future streamflow data. The results show that CT in the Nith River has advanced by 17 days, on average, from 1914 to 2016 (P=0.036), and the advance is projected to continue as a function of future emissions scenario (approximately 12 days for scenario B1, and 17 days for A1B). Historical CT was weakly negatively correlated with temperature (-0.51, P
Download or read book Modelling Snow Dynamics and Groundwater surface Water Interactions in Mountainous Foothill and Plain Regions in North Saskatchewan River Basin Canada written by Majid Zaremehrjardy and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 135 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Snowmelt and groundwater-surface water (GW-SW) interactions are dominant controllers of hydrological cycles and water availability in northern latitudes that are characterized with 'cold region hydrology'. Snowmelt is the main source of groundwater recharge and surface runoff, as snow accumulation holds the largest share of water resources in such cold regions. However, a comprehensive of uncertainty inreliability of snow depth and snowmelt modelling and projections of such GW-SW processes response to snow dynamics under climate change are subjected to debate. To fill this gap, this study has been undertaken with the main objectives of (1) revisiting and characterizing the performance and uncertainty of using two commonly-used approaches for snowmelt modelling, namely Energy-Balance Modules (EBMs) and Temperature-Index Modules (TIMs), as well as two common Snow Density formulations (SNDs) that map snow water equivalent (SWE) to snow depth; and (2) assessing the changes response of snowmelt and GW-SW interactions to snowmelt dynamics under future climate change scenarios and emission scenarios, and evaluating the dynamics of GW-SW interactions in relation to snowmelt. For snowmelt analysis, we coupled the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model with EBM and TIM modules along with two SND formulations, by modifying its source code, in order to examine model representation of snow depth simulation and The Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to assessfor spatiotemporalspatio-temporal variation of uncertainty by decomposition of the total projected snow depth uncertainty to its generating sources due to the use of EBM, TIM, projections in combination with five Global Climate Models (GCMs), two emission scenarios (RCP2.6 and RCP8.5), and two downscaling methods (DS1 and DS2). The analyseis were implemented in mountainous, foothills and plains regions of the North Saskatchewan River Basin (NSRB) as a large, snow-dominated watershed with high variability of climate, vegetation, and topography. Results showed that modeling performance in mountainous regions is poor under using all regardless of snowmelt approaches, i.e., EBMs, TIMs, and SND selection, modelling performance in mountainous regions is poor due to low quality of input climate data. However and SND selection plays an important part in performance and in reducing uncertainty of snowmelt snow depth modulein foothills and plains regions, where more accurate and high resolution climate data are available to setup the initial models. The uncertainty decomposition results showed that model parameter uncertainty, due to the use of EBM or TIM, dominantly controlled snow depth projections, particularly in mountainous and foothills regions. However, in plains regions, the uncertainty contribution of model parameters becomes less dominant and more variable in different months of the year. The results also showed that, regardless of time and season, model parameter uncertainty dominates all other sources in mountainous regions, whereas it becomes less prominent moving from mountain to foothill and to the plain, and the contribution of climate change models and scenarios becomes more important. After comparison of performance and uncertainties associated with different snowmelt modules, the most reliable module was chosen for calibrating the SWAT model. Thus, to answer the second research questionmain obejective, we developed the surface water and groundwater modelling through SWAT-MODFLOW model in order to assess the inter-relation of regional snowmelt and GW-SW interactions and their changes under climate change. Results predicted that under future climate change, earlier snowmelt is expected in mountainous regions, which directly affects the GW-SW interactions changes mainly in mountainous and foothills regionscatchments. On the other hand, correlation analysis of regional snowmelt and GW-SW interactions showed a higher correlation (R^2=0.494) in mountainous regions, compared to very low correlation (R^2
Download or read book Hydro Environmental Impact of Climate and Land Use Change on Watersheds for Sustainable Development written by T. I. Eldho and published by . This book was released on 2024-07 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book includes the most up-to-date research findings on the topics of climate change impact assessment, land use change impact assessment, mathematical modelling, and field applications presented as case studies in the water resources engineering discipline. The book covers various aspects of hydrological and environmental processes; provides a comprehensive treatment of climate change and land use changes and their impacts, illustrated with case studies; and demonstrates recent modelling techniques for hydrological and environmental impact studies. The book may serve graduate students, engineers, professors, and researchers in providing a concise overview of climate and land use change and its impacts on hydrology, water resources, and the environment.
Download or read book Modeling the Potential Impacts of Climate Change on Streamflow Variability in the North Fork of Elk Creek Experimental Watershed West Central Montana written by Katie Marie Jorgensen and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study hypothesizes the effects of global climate change on the hydrologic regime of West-Central Montana, focusing on the North Fork of Elk Creek, a 6.6 km2 (2.6 mi.2) Experimental Watershed. This is important to understand in snowmelt-dominated watersheds, as it is already well documented by current trends and future climate projections that the natural hydrologic regime is experiencing alterations. There have been shifts in the 20th century of the timing of snowmelt trending towards an earlier spring peak flows and declines in the overall snow water equivalent (Regonda et al., 2005; Mote et al., 2005; Hamlet et al., 2005). The goals for this study are to analyze for significant changes in the timing of important hydrologic events, and determine how discharge throughout the year will be altered in the Elk Creek Experimental Watershed (ECEW). To address these issues, a semi-spatial hydrologic model is employed, and run using current meteorological data and under downscaled climate-change scenarios conditions, under three relevant time periods. Snowmelt Runoff Model (SRM) is deterministic and conceptual and is used to generate streamflow in snowmelt dominated basins by the degree-day method (Martinec, 1985). Data is gathered from two SNOTEL sites located within the watershed and streamflow collected directly on the North Fork of Elk Creek. The specific metrics that will be statistically analyzed are mean summer and winter flows, and trends in peak flow and center of mass date timing (Wenger et al., 2009; Regonda et al., 2005). These results can be useful for management purposes because changes in the way water is released from the mountains affects water storage, flooding, and overall watershed resilience such that current practices may need to be accordingly adjusted.
Download or read book Cold Regions Hydrology in a Changing Climate written by International Association of Hydrological Sciences and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
