A Comparison of Streamflow and Baseflow Responses to Land-Use Change and the Variation in Climate Parameters Using SWAT

Mohamed Aboelnour,Margaret W Gitau,Bernard A Engel

doi:10.3390/w12010191

Mohamed Aboelnour, Margaret W Gitau + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/w12010191

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Journal: Water	Publication Date: Jan 10, 2020
Citations: 38	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Purdue University West Lafayette, Suez Canal University

Abstract

Alteration of land use and climate change are among the main variables affecting watershed hydrology. Characterizing the impacts of climate variation and land use alteration on water resources is essential in managing watersheds. Thus, in this research, streamflow and baseflow responses to climate and land use variation were modeled in two watersheds, the Upper West Branch DuPage River (UWBDR) watershed in Illinois and Walzem Creek watershed in Texas. The variations in streamflow and baseflow were evaluated using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) hydrological model. The alteration in land use between 1992 and 2011 was evaluated using transition matrix analysis. The non-parametric Mann–Kendall test was adopted to investigate changes in meteorological data for 1980–2017. Our results indicate that the baseflow accounted for almost 55.3% and 33.3% of the annual streamflow in the UWBDR and Walzem Creek watersheds, respectively. The contribution of both land use alteration and climate variability on the flow variation is higher in the UWBDR watershed. In Walzem Creek, the alteration in streamflow and baseflow appears to be driven by the effect of urbanization more than that of climate variability. The results reported herein are compared with results reported in recent work by the authors in order to provide necessary information for water resources management planning, as well as soil and water conservation, and to broaden the current understanding of hydrological components variation in different climate regions.

Highlights

Ecosystems and humans are fundamentally dependent on different water resources
Results show that the annual baseflow increased at a significance level greater than 0.1 for the Upper West Branch DuPage River (UWBDR)
Precipitation reduction in the second climatic period (TS2) resulted in the significant decline of surface runoff by 20.8 mm (8.2%), and a reduction in evapotranspiration by 2.5%, within the X3 scenario (Table 10). These results indicate that impact of climate variability on baseflow and evapotranspiration was larger than the land use alteration scenario; both scenarios had opposite impacts on average annual water yield and surface runoff

Summary

Introduction

Ecosystems and humans are fundamentally dependent on different water resources. Issues related to changes in water resources are commonly evaluated around the globe [2,3,4]. The quantitative change in streamflow and baseflow has yet to be evaluated across different climatic conditions. Climate alterations and human actions both act as stressors to place severe pressure on water resources [8,9]. The variations in climate and land use directly impact total streamflow, interflow, surface runoff, and baseflow, causing events of droughts and floods that impact the sustainability of these resources and the social ecosystem [10]. Several studies have examined alterations in streamflow due to changes in temperature and precipitation [11,12,13], urbanization [14], and land use change [2,15]

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