Abstract
The goal of sustainable water quality management is to keep total pollutant discharges from exceeding the assimilation capacity of a water body. Climate change may influence streamflows, and further alter assimilation capacity and degrade river sustainability. The purposes of this study are to evaluate the effect of climate change on sustainable water quality management and design an early warning indicator to issue warnings on river sustainability. A systematic assessment procedure is proposed here, including a weather generation model, the streamflow component of GWLF, QUAL2E, and an optimization model. The Touchen creek in Taiwan is selected as the study area. Future climate scenarios derived from projections of four global climate models (GCMs) and two pollutant discharge scenarios, as usual and proportional to population, are considered in this study. The results indicate that streamflows may very likely increase in humid seasons and decrease in arid seasons, respectively. The reduction of streamflow in arid seasons may further degrade water quality and assimilation capacity. In order to provide warnings to trigger necessary adaptation strategies, an early warning indicator is designed and its 30-year moving average is calculated. Finally, environmental monitoring systems and methods to prioritize adaptation strategies are discussed for further studies in the future.
Highlights
The goal of sustainable development is to manage loadings resulting from social and economic development not to exceed eco-environmental carrying capacity
Early Warning Indicator (EWI) is calculated for different periods to provide early warning information
The parameters required for the Generalized Watershed Loading Functions (GWLF) are determined according to the land uses and soil texture of the study area
Summary
The goal of sustainable development is to manage loadings resulting from social and economic development not to exceed eco-environmental carrying capacity. The carrying capacity for water quality management is the assimilation capacity of a body of water and is a function of water quality standards and streamflows. The sustainability of a river with respect to water quality can be defined as meeting current and future needs and keeping total pollutant discharges from exceeding assimilation capacity. Many studies (Elsner et al 2010; Mantua et al 2010; Forbes et al 2011) have shown that climate change may significantly influence streamflow. Assimilation capacities and river sustainability may be further degraded under climate change conditions.
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