Hydrological Responses to Climate and Land Use Changes in a Watershed of the Loess Plateau, China
1
State Key Laboratory of Water Environment Simulation, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
2
Key Laboratory for Water and Sediment Sciences of Ministry of Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
3
Beijing Engineering Research Center for Watershed Environmental Restoration and Integrated Ecological Regulation, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2019, 11(5), 1443; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11051443
Received: 14 January 2019 / Revised: 25 February 2019 / Accepted: 3 March 2019 / Published: 8 March 2019
(This article belongs to the Section Environmental Sustainability and Applications)
This study researched the individual and combined impacts of future LULC and climate changes on water balance in the upper reaches of the Beiluo River basin on the Loess Plateau of China, using the scenarios of RCP4.5 and 8.5 of the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The climate data indicated that both precipitation and temperature increased at seasonal and annual scales from 2020 to 2050 under RCP4.5 and 8.5 scenarios. The future land use changes were predicted through the CA-Markov model. The land use predictions of 2025, 2035, and 2045 indicated rising forest areas with decreased agricultural land and grassland. In this study, three scenarios including only LULC change, only climate change, and combined climate and LULC change were established. The SWAT model was calibrated, validated, and used to simulate the water balance under the three scenarios. The results showed that increased rainfall and temperature may lead to increased runoff, water yield, and ET in spring, summer, and autumn and to decreased runoff, water yield, and ET in winter from 2020 to 2050. However, LULC change, compared with climate change, may have a smaller impact on the water balance. On an annual scale, runoff and water yield may gradually decrease, but ET may increase. The combined effects of both LULC and climate changes on water balance in the future were similar to the variation trend of climate changes alone at both annual and seasonal scales. The results obtained in this study provide further insight into the availability of future streamflow and can aid in water resource management planning in the study area.
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Keywords:
climate change; CLIGEN; CA-Markov; SWAT; hydrological responses
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MDPI and ACS Style
Yan, R.; Cai, Y.; Li, C.; Wang, X.; Liu, Q. Hydrological Responses to Climate and Land Use Changes in a Watershed of the Loess Plateau, China. Sustainability 2019, 11, 1443. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11051443
AMA Style
Yan R, Cai Y, Li C, Wang X, Liu Q. Hydrological Responses to Climate and Land Use Changes in a Watershed of the Loess Plateau, China. Sustainability. 2019; 11(5):1443. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11051443
Chicago/Turabian StyleYan, Rui, Yanpeng Cai, Chunhui Li, Xuan Wang, and Qiang Liu. 2019. "Hydrological Responses to Climate and Land Use Changes in a Watershed of the Loess Plateau, China" Sustainability 11, no. 5: 1443. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11051443
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