| Authors: | Kelly Suttles |
|---|---|
| Owners: | Kelly Suttles |
| Resource type: | SWAT Model Instance Resource |
| Created: | Sep 28, 2018 at 5:47 p.m. |
| Last updated: | Sep 28, 2018 at 6:04 p.m. by Kelly Suttles |
Abstract
This study assessed the combined effects of increased urbanization and climate change on streamflow in the Yadkin-Pee Dee watershed (North Carolina, USA) and focused on the conversion from forest to urban land use, the primary land use transition occurring in the watershed. We used the Soil and Water Assessment Tool to simulate future (2050-2070) streamflow and baseflow for four combined climate and land use scenarios across the Yadkin-Pee Dee River watershed and three subwatersheds. The combined scenarios pair land use change and climate change scenarios together. Compared to the baseline, projected streamflow increased in three out of four combined scenarios and decreased in one combined scenario. Baseflow decreased in all combined scenarios, but decreases were largest in subwatersheds that lost the most forest. The effects of land use change and climate change were additive, amplifying the increases in runoff and decreases in baseflow. Streamflow was influenced more strongly by climate change than land use change. However, for baseflow the reverse was true; land use change tended to drive baseflow more than climate change. Land use change was also a stronger driver than climate in the most urban subwatershed. In the most extreme land use and climate projection the volume of the 1-day, 100 year flood nearly doubled at the watershed outlet. Our results underscore the importance of forests as hydrologic regulators buffering streamflow and baseflow from hydrologic extremes. Additionally, our results suggest that land managers and policy makers need to consider the implications of forest loss on streamflow and baseflow when planning for future urbanization and climate change adaptation options. This is the SWAT model used.
Subject Keywords
streamflow,land use models,forested watersheds,forest management,land use change,Soil Water Assessment Tool (SWAT)
How to cite
This resource is shared under the Creative Commons Attribution CC BY.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Sharing status:
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Public
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Not Shareable
Coverage
Spatial:
| Coordinate System/Geographic Projection: | WGS 84 EPSG:4326 |
| Coordinate Units: | Decimal degrees |
Temporal:
| Start Date: | |
| End Date: |
Content
Authors
| Name | Organization | Address | Phone | Author Identifiers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kelly Suttles |
| Includes output files? | Yes |
|---|
| Name | Unspecified |
|---|
| SWAT model objectives | Hydrology, Climate / Landuse Change |
|---|
| SWAT simulation type | Normal Simulation |
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| Warm-up period in years | 3 |
|---|---|
| Rainfall time step type | Daily |
| Routing time step type | Daily |
| Simulation time step type | Daily |
| Watershed area in square kilometers | 17000 |
| Number of subbasins | 28 |
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