Search Results (4)

The Cau river basin in northern Vietnam is experiencing increasing pressures on water resources due to rapid urbanization, industrial development, agricultural expansion, and inadequate wastewater management. Understanding the interactions between surface water, groundwater, and water quality is essential for developing effective and sustainable water management strategies. This study developed and applied a coupled MIKE SHE–MIKE 11 framework to simulate surface–groundwater connectivity and its influence on water quality dynamics in the Cau river basin. Hydrometeorological and water quality datasets collected during 2023–2024 were used to calibrate and test the integrated model at key monitoring locations, including Cha, Phuc Loc Phuong, and Dap Cau stations. The hydrological component demonstrated satisfactory performance, with Nash–Sutcliffe Efficiency (NSE) values ranging from 0.55 to 0.79 for water level simulations, indicating a reliable representation of surface and subsurface flow processes. Simulated river–aquifer exchange fluxes revealed pronounced spatial variability across the basin. Upstream reaches predominantly functioned as groundwater recharge zones, whereas the middle and downstream sections exhibited dynamic bidirectional exchanges governed by river stage fluctuations, hydraulic gradients, and local hydrogeological conditions. Water quality simulations for BOD₅, COD, NH₄⁺, total nitrogen (TN), and total phosphorus (TP) showed good agreement with observations, with calibration and testing errors generally remaining below 25%. Incorporating surface–groundwater interactions improved the representation of pollutant transport, residence time, and nutrient accumulation processes compared with conventional river-only simulations. The results demonstrate that river–aquifer connectivity plays a critical role in regulating both hydrological processes and water quality conditions in the basin. The coupled modeling framework provides a robust scientific basis for identifying critical interaction zones, assessing pollution risks, optimizing monitoring programs, and supporting integrated water resource planning. By explicitly linking hydrological connectivity with water quality dynamics, the proposed framework serves as a practical decision-support tool for sustainable water resource management in the Cau river basin and other river–aquifer systems facing increasing environmental pressures and progressive water quality degradation. Full article

Lakes, either artificial or natural, are greatly important as a component in their catchments’ hydrology, but also as ecosystem service providers. However, due to climate change, they have begun to face numerous problems with their water quality and quantity. Furthermore, general circulation models (GCMs) show future climate change with a reduction in rainfall and increase in temperature. The aim of the current study is to present an application where GCMs and state-of-the-art hydrological modelling system MIKE SHE/MIKE 11 are combined for assessing the response of a Greek lake in terms of its water balance and water level under climate change. Four general circulation models (GCMs; GFDL-CM3, MIROC-ESM-CHEM, MIROC-ESM, IPSL-CM5A-LR) for the extreme climate change scenario of RCP8.5 were used in the basin of Lake Zazari in Greece as a case study. Results showed that, by keeping the irrigated demands (the main water user) unchanged in the future, the lake exhibited a lower water level for all GCMs, fluctuating from −0.70 to −1.8 m for the mean (min) water level and from −0.30 to −1.20 m for the mean (max) water level. Instead of the above and by preserving the amount of withdraw water n from the lake at a certain percentage of inflows, the irrigated area should be reduced from 54.1% to 64.05% depending on the circulation model. Full article

This paper describes the main functionalities of an integrated framework to model the interactions between land use, climate, and hydrology along with stakeholders’ negotiation. Its novelty lies in the combination of individual-based and spatially distributed models within the Socio-Hydrology paradigm to capture the complexity and uncertainty inherent to these systems. It encompasses a land-use/land-cover cellular automata model, an agent-based model used for automated stakeholders’ negotiation, and the hydrological MIKE SHE/MIKE 11 model, which are linked and can be accessed through a web-based interface. It enables users to run simulations to explore a wide range of scenarios related to land development and water resource management while considering the reciprocal influence of human and natural systems. This framework was developed with the involvement of key stakeholders from the initial design stage to the final demonstration and validation. Full article

This study proposes an integrated modeling system consisting of the physically-based MIKE SHE/MIKE 11 model, a cellular automata model, and general circulation models (GCMs) scenarios to investigate the independent and combined effects of future climate and land-use/land-cover (LULC) changes on the hydrology of a river system. The integrated modelling system is applied to the Elbow River watershed in southern Alberta, Canada in conjunction with extreme GCM scenarios and two LULC change scenarios in the 2020s and 2050s. Results reveal that LULC change substantially modifies the river flow regime in the east sub-catchment, where rapid urbanization is occurring. It is also shown that the change in LULC causes an increase in peak flows in both the 2020s and 2050s. The impacts of climate and LULC change on streamflow are positively correlated in winter and spring, which intensifies their influence and leads to a significant rise in streamflow, and, subsequently, increases the vulnerability of the watershed to spring floods. This study highlights the importance of using an integrated modeling approach to investigate both the independent and combined impacts of climate and LULC changes on the future of hydrology to improve our understanding of how watersheds will respond to climate and LULC changes. Full article