Quantitatively analyze the impact of land use/land cover change on annual runoff decrease

Annual runoff in Luanhe river basin was detected a downward trend and caused water crisis in Tianjin, China. To quantify the decreased runoff volume, Mann–Kendall test and Pettitt test were employed to check whether there existed significant trend and change points for annual rainfall and runoff time series in Panjiakou reservoir basin and 8 sub-watersheds. It was found that the annual runoff time series had a significant downward trend at 5 % confidence level, and the change point was at 1979 in Panjiakou reservoir watershed. Then double mass curve of annual rainfall and annual runoff was plotted, and two lines were fitted before and after 1979, respectively. Based on this method, the comprehensive effects of land use/land cover change on annual runoff were estimated. To further quantify the contributions of each main factor to annual runoff decrease, water stored in check dams and social water use in different periods were surveyed first. And then multi-linear regression was used to develop the relations between annual runoff and the driven factors. Water area decrease was identified to be the main factor contributing to annual runoff reduction. The results in this study can provide valuable information for water resources planners and policy makers.     

Climate and hydrological models to assess the impact of climate change on hydrological regime: a review

Quantitative knowledge about the impacts of climate change on the hydrological regime is essential in order to achieve meaningful insights to address various adverse consequences related to water such as water scarcity, flooding, drought, etc. General circulation models (GCMs) have been developed to simulate the present climate and to predict future climatic change. But, the coarse resolution of their outputs is inefficient to resolve significant regional scale features for assessing the effects of climate change on the hydrological regimes, thus restricting their direct implementation in hydrological models. This article reviews hierarchy and development of climate models from the early times, importance and inter-comparison of downscaling techniques and development of hydrological models. Also recent research developments regarding the evaluation of climate change impact on the hydrological regime have been discussed. The article also provides some suggestions to improve the effectiveness of modelling approaches involved in the assessment of climate change impact on hydrological regime.     

Assessing the effects of climate change on the hydrological regime of the Limay River basin

The electricity generation capacity in the Limay River basin is approximately 26% of the total electrical power generation in Argentina. Assessing the potential effects of climate change on the hydrological regime of this basin is an important issue for water resources management. This study explores the presence of trends in streamflow series, evaluates climate sensitivity and studies the effects on the flow regime of predicted changes in precipitation in the basin. In order to identify and quantify changes in observed streamflow series, the Mann–Kendall test, with a modification for autocorrelated data, and an estimator of the magnitude of the trend are applied. In order to evaluate the sensitivity of streamflow to changes in climate, the concept of elasticity is used. Precipitation elasticity of streamflow is used to quantify the sensitivity of streamflow to changes in precipitation and is estimated using a power law model and a linear statistical model in two sub-basins, Aluminé and Nahuel Huapi. The effects on flow regime of the predicted changes in precipitation under different scenarios are studied. Climatic results for different scenarios of growth in greenhouse gases from some General Circulation Models are used as inputs into the proposed models. The analysis identifies decreasing trends in mean and minimum annual flows and in the low flow season. The estimates of the precipitation elasticity imply that changes in precipitation produce similar changes in streamflow and the climatic results for different scenarios show that the variations are moderate.     

滦河流域土地利用/覆被变化的水文响应

以滦河流域为研究区,利用1985和2000年土地利用数据,结合SWAT分布式水文模型定量评价了流域土地利用/覆被变化的水文效应,并分析了流域地表径流变化与主要景观类型的响应关系。结果表明:SWAT（Soil and Water Assessment Tool）模型可以较好地模拟滦河流域的月流量过程,在研究区具有较好的适用性;1985—2000年流域林地向草地和耕地的转变导致流域年均地表径流和总径流量分别增加了12.6%和5.1%;并使得流域年均地表径流变化空间差异显著,整体呈增加趋势,且主要受到林地变化的影响,而在三道河子以上集水区地表径流的变化则主要受到耕地景观的影响。合理规划土地利用格局,对于流域水资源可持续利用具有重要意义。     

The impact of land use and land cover changes on soil erosion in western Iran

Natural Hazards - Analysis of long-term land use and land cover (LULC) changes requires up-to-date remotely sensed data to assess their effects on erosion. This is a particularly important...     

Potential impact of climate change on snow cover area in the Tarim River basin

Two data sets, annual temperature and precipitation time series from 19 observation stations in the Tarim River basin covering 1958 through 2002, were investigated by non-parametric tests to detect the trend and features of climate change and variability. Based on these data, the snow cover area (SCA) in situ for the period 1982–2001 was further analyzed to examine the effect of climate change on snow. The results showed that both the temperature and precipitation had a jump in the mid 1980s and significantly increased in winter and summer, respectively. The SCA of the entire basin showed a slowly increasing trend. Responses of the SCA to temperature and precipitation in the northern, western and southern regions showed that the effect of precipitation on SCA is larger than that of temperature. In vertical direction, the SCA in the zone below 2,500 m a.s.l. kept a slow increase, but that in the zone above 2,500 m a.s.l. was inching down. Comparatively, the lower altitude zone was apt to be affected by precipitation, while the higher altitude zone tended to be influenced by temperature. The mid zone from 2,500 to 5,000 m was the area most sensitive to and affected by climate change. Compared with that in the 1980s, both the snowing and melting rates were higher in the 1990s. Correlation analysis implied that the SCA change in the cold season was positively correlated with the contemporary precipitation change, but had no strong correlation with the contemporary temperature change.     

Assessment of characteristics and distinguished hydrological periods of a river regime

This study was carried out to analyze the hydrological characteristics and assess the distinguished hydrological periods of Upper Indus Basin (UIB) Rivers of Pakistan. For this purpose, statistical analysis (variation coefficient, the auto-correlation coefficient, sequential Mann–Kendall’s test) and a proposed method for distinguishing hydrological periods (described in methodology section) were applied. The results revealed that all rivers reflect moderate variability. The results of auto-correlation displayed that the river flow observed at Astore gauging station only indicated independency, while for Gilgit, Hunza and Kachura guaging at Indus River exhibited 2, 2, 4-year lag. The mutation analysis indicated that after 1980, the change point occurred at all UIB rivers. During analysis, it was also observed that river regimes have the same hydrological periods (i.e., 4), but with different dates of occurrence. The Gilgit River showed a low high-flow hydrological period compared to Astore, Hunza and Kachora (Indus). This difference may be due to the river’s own area natural conditions. The current analysis may be helpful for planning and management of water resources, designing of hydraulic structures and to make better policies in response to agricultural water requirement downstream of UIB River.     

典型喀斯特石漠化地区植被动态监测与土地利用变化的影响分析

基于2001至2014年MOD13Q1数据集、数字地面高程数据以及中梁山地区多期土地覆盖数据,进行植被覆盖度（FVC）估算及其变化趋势模拟、多期土地利用转移矩阵分析,探讨中梁山地区植被覆盖度动态变化特征、土地利用的时空变化特征以及土地利用和地形同植被覆盖度间的响应机制。研究结果表明：中梁山76.69%的区域为植被改善区,退化区面积占总面积的10.12%,存在明显的改善趋势,生态情况得到良好恢复;人类活动对中梁山区域影响方式主要表现为耕地向林地和建设用地转化的特点;植被生长趋势的空间异质性与坡度有关,坡陡区植被改善面积约为退化面积的14倍,缓坡区仅为7倍;植被退化现象受人览活动的影响较大,而人类晃动对植被改善影响较小,植被改善主要与植物的自然生长演替有关。     

坝上地区土地利用和覆被变化与土壤中养分动态的关联性

坝上地区位于北京北部、内蒙高原南部,为典型的农牧交错带,生态环境十分脆弱,对环境反映非常敏感,是研究环境变化最理想的地区。该区距京、津逾200km,又是京、津地区的水源地和生态屏障,区位十分重要。该区人少地多,土壤中很少施用化肥、农药,养分分析数据更趋于客观。     

气候变化、土地利用/覆被变化及CO2浓度升高对滦河流域径流的影响

在构建分布式水文模型与生物地球化学模型的耦合模型（DTVGM-CASACNP）及应用元胞自动机-马尔科夫（CA-Markov）土地利用预测模型基础上,以滦河流域为例分析气候变化、土地利用/覆被变化（LUCC）及CO₂浓度升高对径流的影响。研究结果表明: DTVGM-CASACNP耦合模型以及CA-Markov模型在滦河流域均具有较好的适用性;气候变化与土地利用/植被覆盖变化对滦河流域径流的影响较CO₂浓度升高的影响程度大;未来不同情景下滦河流域2020—2049年径流呈减小趋势,大部分情景下年径流较基准年减少,与非汛期相比,滦河流域未来汛期径流对不同情景更敏感,总体上在汛期径流相对基准年减少,而在非汛期径流相对基准年增加。     

土地利用变化对海河流域典型区域的径流影响

为研究海河流域径流对土地利用变化的响应,以阜平流域、匡门口流域和界河铺流域为研究区,利用1970—2011年的水文气象资料,分析了不同土地利用的时空转移特征,然后结合SWAT(Soil and Water Assessment Tool)模型,设置4种土地利用情景,评价了土地利用变化对径流的影响。结果表明:模型能够较好地模拟全年及汛期月流量过程;多年径流量呈下降趋势,20世纪80年代到90年代中期呈波动性变化;不同的土地利用类型在时空上的转化呈现可逆性,主要是林地增加,草地减少,耕地略有增加;林地的增加和草地的减少会降低汛期径流量以及最大月径流量;汛期径流系数随着林地面积的增加而减小。合理地规划土地利用格局,对控制流域水文事件具有重要意义。     

Assessing land use and land cover change in the Wassa West District of Ghana using remote sensing

Vast tracts of forests are lost globally every year especially in the developing countries of the tropics due to various human activities such as lumbering, farming, bush fires, surface mining and urbanization. The rainforest in Ghana has experienced rapid depletion since the 1980s. The impact of deforestation is widespread, affecting the livelihoods of local people and disrupting the tropical ecosystem. There is a serious concern in the study area about climatic change, soil erosion, siltation of rivers and loss in biodiversity which have an adverse impact on traditional medicinal plants of the local people. The study examined the extent of land cover change through image differencing of Landsat TM 1986 and 2002. The image classification indicated that, vegetative cover from 1986 to 2002 has been reducing whiles land use activities have been increasing. Closed canopy, open canopy and plantation have significantly diminished and land use activities especially built ups, farms, mining and openfields are more than doubled. The driving forces for the change in land cover are population growth, lumbering, socio-economic and cultural practices of the people. Lumbering and mining have been some of the major causes of the changing landscape in primary forest. Also the reliance on wood for domestic energy and the need to increase food productivity to feed growing population have also contributed greatly to the rapid depletion of the vegetative cover.     

Effects of historical and projected land use/cover change on runoff and sediment yield in the Netravati river basin,Western Ghats,India

In this study, the effects of changes in historical and projected land use land cover (LULC) on monthly streamflow and sediment yield for the Netravati river basin in the Western Ghats of India are explored using land use maps from six time periods (1972, 1979, 1991, 2000, 2012, and 2030) and the soil and water assessment tool (SWAT). The LULC for 2030 is projected using the land change modeller with the assumption of normal growth. The sensitivity analysis, model calibration, and validation indicated that the SWAT model could reasonably simulate streamflow and sediment yield in the river basin. The results showed that the spatial extent of the LULC classes of urban (1.80–9.96%), agriculture (31.38–55.75%), and water bodies (1.48–2.66%) increased, whereas that of forest (53.04–27.03%), grassland (11.17–4.41%), and bare land (1.09–0.16%) decreased from 1972 to 2030. The streamflow increased steadily (7.88%) with changes in LULC, whereas the average annual sediment yield decreased (0.028%) between 1972 and 1991 and increased later (0.029%) until 2012. However, it may increase by 0.43% from 2012 to 2030. The results indicate that LULC changes in urbanization and agricultural intensification have contributed to the increase in runoff, amounting to 428.65 and 58.67 mm, respectively, and sediment yield, amounting to 348 and 43 ton/km², respectively, in the catchment area from 1972 to 2030. The proposed methodology can be applied to other river basins for which temporal digital LULC maps are available for better water resource management plans.     

Impact of water demand on hydrological regime under climate and LULC change scenarios

The present study focuses on an assessment of the impact of future water demand on the hydrological regime under land use/land cover (LULC) and climate change scenarios. The impact has been quantified in terms of streamflow and groundwater recharge in the Gandherswari River basin, West Bengal, India. dynamic conversion of land use and its effects (Dyna-CLUE) and statistical downscaling model (SDSM) are used for quantifying the future LULC and climate change scenarios, respectively. Physical-based semi-distributed model Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) is used for estimating future streamflow and spatiotemporally distributed groundwater recharge. Model calibration and validation have been performed using discharge data (1990–2016). The impacts of LULC and climate change on hydrological variables are evaluated with three scenarios (for the years 2030, 2050 and 2080). Temperature Vegetation Dyrness Index (TVDI) and evapotranspiration (ET) are considered for estimation of water-deficit conditions in the river basin. Exceedance probability and recurrence interval representation are considered for uncertainty analysis. The results show increased discharge in case of monsoon season and decreased discharge in case of the non-monsoon season for the years 2030 and 2050. However, a reverse trend is obtained for the year 2080. The overall increase in groundwater recharge is visible for all the years. This analysis provides valuable information for the irrigation water management framework.     

A multi-scale study on land use and land cover quality change: The case of the Yellow River Delta in China

This paper presents a case study of the Yellow River Delta in China, to trace land use and land cover changes during the past 20 years, with an emphasis on land quality changes. Three sets of data are used in this case study: remote sensing data derived from satellite images; crop yield data from statistics; and soil data collected by the researchers in the field. Our study reveals that at the regional scale, LUCC has taken place in a positive direction: vegetation cover has been expanding and crop yields per hectare have been on rise. However, while the overall eco-environment has improved, the improvement is uneven across the Delta region. At local levels, some areas show signs of increased salinization and declining organic content. Both natural forces and human activities are responsible for the LUCC, but human activities play a more important role. While some impacts of human activities are positive, the damages are often long-lasting and irreversible. We also conclude that it is necessary to use both macro data (such as remote sensing data) and micro data (data collected in the field) to study land quality change. The former are efficient in examining land quality changes at the regional scale, the latter can serve to verify ground patterns revealed from macro data and help to identify local variations, so as to get a comprehensive understanding of LUCC and promote sustainable land use and land management. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Waterlogging risk assessment based on land use/cover change: a case study in Pudong New Area,Shanghai

Waterlogging induced by torrential rain or typhoon in urban areas due to rapid urban development and land cover changes has been a global hotspot and a potential risk affecting urban habitant lifelines and safety. This paper analyzed the impact of land use/cover change on the surface runoff and evaluated the waterlogging risk caused by precipitation with different intensities in Pudong New Area, Shanghai. A simplified urban waterlogging model has been built for the inundated water depth simulation through the combination of both SCS model and GIS spatial analysis with the consideration of underlying surface characters in urban area. Based on the simulated depth results, waterlogging risk ranks were further established to evaluate waterlogging risk of Pudong New Area under different conditions considering social survey results. The results show that the land use structure and pattern change increases surface runoff depth. Under the assumption of a daily maximum precipitation at 200 mm, the surface runoff depth increased by 13.19 mm from 1994 to 2006 due to urbanization. On the whole, Heqing, Huaxia tourism area, Chuansha, Tangzhen and Jichang Town have high waterlogging risk rank, Gaoqiao, Donggou, urban district, Jinqiao, Caolu, Sanlin and Beicai Town have medium waterlogging risk rank, and Zhangjiang, Gaodong and Huamu Town have low waterlogging risk rank. These results provide important information for the local government, and the method of waterlogging risk assessment can also be applied in other cities to provide guidance on waterlogging risk control.     

The significance of large-scale land cover change on the Australian palaeomonsoon

We use the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System at a 50 km spatial resolution to explore the impact of large-scale vegetation changes on the Australian monsoon. We simulate multiple Januaries using vegetation cover representative of the present day, the last interglacial (LIG) (125,000 BP) and the last glacial maximum (20,000 BP), interpreted from palaeoecological data, to determine whether changes in vegetation can affect the Australian monsoon. We find that the large-scale replacement of current vegetation, to vegetation representing the LIG and the last glacial maximum has a substantial impact on the simulated latent heat flux and surface air temperature. Precipitation is affected, but only by approximately 5%. We show that the impact of vegetation change on precipitation is due to changes in the surface roughness length that affects the surface frictional drag, wind velocities and moisture convergence. The impact of large-scale vegetation changes on all quantities is restricted to the regions of land cover change. The perturbation induced by vegetation change interacts with the monsoon system by changing the local intensity of the atmospheric circulation causing relatively small intensification/moderation of the wind velocities. There is little evidence that the vegetation change induces a change in the large-scale structure of the meteorological system and there is no evidence that the vegetation changes induce a southward extension of the monsoon. We therefore find no evidence to support a hypothesis that vegetation feedbacks explain observed changes in lake levels in the Australian arid interior. We highlight some strengths and weaknesses of our approach and emphasise that the limitations implicit in our analytical methods means we cannot conclusively demonstrate that biospheric feedbacks can be ignored. Substantial additional work is therefore required to finally assess the role of biospheric feedbacks on the Australian palaeomonsoon.