Impact of land cover changes on Long‐Term Regional‐Scale groundwater recharge simulation in cold and humid climates

Abstract

AbstractIn cold and humid climates, warming temperatures will result in longer growing seasons, leading to land cover changes that could have long‐term impacts on groundwater recharge (GWR), in addition to the direct impacts of climate change. The objective of this study was therefore to investigate whether land cover (LC) changes need to be considered when simulating long‐term regional‐scale potential GWR in cold and humid climates by (1) quantifying how LC changes impact simulated GWR and (2) quantifying the combined impacts of LC and climate changes on the future GWR changes. Using the region of southern Quebec (Canada) as a case study and a water budget model, this work proposes an innovative coupling of land cover change scenarios and specific future climate conditions to simulate spatially distributed transient GWR over the 1951–2100 period. The results showed that including LC changes in long‐term GWR simulations produced statistically significant increases in GWR compared to using a constant LC through time (average of +13 mm). Massive afforestation taking place on agricultural lands simulated for one of the scenario chains (RCP4.5) increased GWR by reducing runoff during the snow‐dominated period (average − 17 mm). The results also showed that GWR was more sensitive to climate change for scenarios that included intense land cover changes. Additionally, the spatial distribution of the LC changes influenced their simulated impacts on GWR. Considering that the methodology was computationally feasible and entirely transferrable to the new CMIP6 ensemble, LC changes should be considered systematically in long‐term groundwater resources simulations.