Abstract
Abstract. The effects of land-use change on river flows have usually been explained by changes within a river basin. However, land–atmosphere feedback such as moisture recycling can link local land-use change to modifications of remote precipitation, with further knock-on effects on distant river flows. Here, we look at river flow changes caused by both land-use change and water use within the basin, as well as modifications of imported and exported atmospheric moisture. We show that in some of the world’s largest basins, precipitation was influenced more strongly by land-use change occurring outside than inside the basin. Moreover, river flows in several non-transboundary basins were considerably regulated by land-use changes in foreign countries. We conclude that regional patterns of land-use change and moisture recycling are important to consider in explaining runoff change, integrating land and water management, and informing water governance.
Highlights
River flows (Q) are fundamental for ecosystems, nutrient transport, hydropower, navigation, and human well-being (Oki and Kanae, 2006)
Our results show that human Land-use change (LUC) (Fig. 2) has led to reductions in E and P, and to increases in Q, in large parts of the world (Fig. 4b– d)
We analysed the potential impact of human LUC on Q worldwide through terrestrial moisture recycling (TMR), and separately looked at the remote and local LUC effects of relevance to water governance
Summary
River flows (Q) are fundamental for ecosystems, nutrient transport, hydropower, navigation, and human well-being (Oki and Kanae, 2006). Central to the analysis of Q is the river basin unit, and estimates of Q from LUC often assume that impacts occur exclusively within a basin (Gerten et al, 2008; Piao et al, 2007; Rost et al, 2008a, b; Sterling et al, 2012). Land– atmosphere feedbacks are not incorporated into most recent literature on a wide range of topics of relevance for water management, such as virtual water (Dalin et al, 2017), the freshwater planetary boundary (Rockström et al, 2009; Steffen et al, 2015), water scarcity (Mekonnen and Hoekstra, 2016), the relative role of climate and LUC for water flows (Zheng et al, 2016), and land acquisition impacts on water (Johansson et al, 2016; Rulli et al, 2012).
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