scholarly journals Human amplified changes in precipitation-runoff patterns in large river basins of the Midwestern United States

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara A. Kelly ◽  
Zeinab Takbiri ◽  
Patrick Belmont ◽  
Efi Foufoula-Georgiou
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Water Resource Management ◽  
Land Use Changes ◽  
River Basins ◽  
Large River ◽  
Agricultural Drainage ◽  
Prairie Wetlands ◽  
Urban Centers ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Scales ◽  
Crop Agriculture

Abstract. Complete transformations of land cover from prairie, wetlands, and hardwood forests to row crop agriculture and urban centers are thought to have caused profound changes in hydrology in the Upper Midwestern US since the 1800s. In this study, we investigate four large (23,000–69,000 km2) Midwest river basins that span climate and land use gradients to understand how climate and agricultural drainage have influenced basin hydrology over the last 79 years. We use daily, monthly, and annual flow metrics to document streamflow changes and discuss those changes in the context of precipitation and land use changes. Since 1935, flow, precipitation, artificial drainage extent, and corn and soybean acreage have increased across the region. In extensively drained basins, we observe 2 to 4 fold increases in low flows and 1.5 to 3 fold increases in high and extreme flows. Using a water budget, we determined that the storage term has decreased in intensively drained and cultivated basins by 30 %–200 % since 1975, but increased by roughly 30 % in the less agricultural basin. Storage has generally decreased during spring and summer months and increased during fall and winter months in all watersheds. Thus, the loss of storage and enhanced hydrologic connectivity and efficiency imparted by artificial agricultural drainage appear to have amplified the streamflow response to precipitation increases in the Midwest. Future increases in precipitation are likely to further intensify drainage practices and increase streamflows. Increased streamflow has implications for flood risk, channel adjustment, and sediment and nutrient transport and presents unique challenges for agriculture and water resource management in the Midwest. Better documentation of existing and future drain tile and ditch installation is needed to further understand the role of climate versus drainage across multiple spatial and temporal scales.

scholarly journals Human amplified changes in precipitation–runoff patterns in large river basins of the Midwestern United States

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (10) ◽  
pp. 5065-5088 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara A. Kelly ◽  
Zeinab Takbiri ◽  
Patrick Belmont ◽  
Efi Foufoula-Georgiou
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Water Resource Management ◽  
Land Use Changes ◽  
River Basins ◽  
Large River ◽  
Agricultural Drainage ◽  
Prairie Wetlands ◽  
Urban Centers ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Scales ◽  
Crop Agriculture

Abstract. Complete transformations of land cover from prairie, wetlands, and hardwood forests to row crop agriculture and urban centers are thought to have caused profound changes in hydrology in the Upper Midwestern US since the 1800s. In this study, we investigate four large (23 000–69 000 km2) Midwest river basins that span climate and land use gradients to understand how climate and agricultural drainage have influenced basin hydrology over the last 79 years. We use daily, monthly, and annual flow metrics to document streamflow changes and discuss those changes in the context of precipitation and land use changes. Since 1935, flow, precipitation, artificial drainage extent, and corn and soybean acreage have increased across the region. In extensively drained basins, we observe 2 to 4 fold increases in low flows and 1.5 to 3 fold increases in high and extreme flows. Using a water budget, we determined that the storage term has decreased in intensively drained and cultivated basins by 30–200 % since 1975, but increased by roughly 30 % in the less agricultural basin. Storage has generally decreased during spring and summer months and increased during fall and winter months in all watersheds. Thus, the loss of storage and enhanced hydrologic connectivity and efficiency imparted by artificial agricultural drainage appear to have amplified the streamflow response to precipitation increases in the Midwest. Future increases in precipitation are likely to further intensify drainage practices and increase streamflows. Increased streamflow has implications for flood risk, channel adjustment, and sediment and nutrient transport and presents unique challenges for agriculture and water resource management in the Midwest. Better documentation of existing and future drain tile and ditch installation is needed to further understand the role of climate versus drainage across multiple spatial and temporal scales.

scholarly journals Land-use changes reinforce the impacts of climate change on annual runoff dynamics in a southeast China coastal watershed

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 6305-6325 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Ervinia ◽  
J. Huang ◽  
Z. Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Water Resource Management ◽  
Land Use Changes ◽  
Annual Runoff ◽  
Climatic Data ◽  
Coastal Watershed ◽  
Total Runoff ◽  
Runoff Changes ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Runoff Dynamics

Abstract. Study on runoff dynamics across different physiographic regions is fundamentally important to formulate the sound strategies for water resource management especially in the coastal watershed where peoples heavily concentrated and relied on water resources. The L−R diagram, a conceptual model by which the land-changes evapotranspiration (ΔL) was estimated as the difference between actual and climate evapotranspiration to identify the specific impact of land-use changes on annual runoff changes (ΔR), was developed using the 53-year hydro-climatic data of Jiulong River Watershed, a typical medium-sized subtropical coastal watershed in China. This study found that land-use changes have reinforced the impact of climatic changes on runoff changes where nearly all points were scattered in II and IV quadrant. Deforestation and expansion of built up area has diminished the water retention capacity in a catchment as well as evapotranspiration thus produce extra runoff accounting for 12–183 % of total runoff increase. In contrast, reforestation makes the significant contribution to decreasing annual runoff for about 21–82 % of total runoff loss. This study revealed the river runoff has become more vulnerable to intensive anthropogenic disturbances under the context of climate changes in a coastal watershed.

scholarly journals Development of a time-stepping sediment budget model for assessing land use impacts in large river basins

2014 ◽  
Vol 468-469 ◽  
pp. 1210-1224 ◽  
Author(s):  
S.N. Wilkinson ◽  
C. Dougall ◽  
A.E. Kinsey-Henderson ◽  
R.D. Searle ◽  
R.J. Ellis ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
River Basins ◽  
Large River ◽  
Sediment Budget ◽  
Land Use Impacts ◽  
Budget Model ◽  
Time Stepping ◽  
Large River Basins

scholarly journals A century scale human-induced hydrological and ecological changes of wetlands of two large river basins in Australia (Murray) and China (Yangtze): development of an adaptive water resource management framework

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 8247-8287 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. R. Kattel ◽  
X. Dong ◽  
X. Yang
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Human Disturbance ◽  
Water Resource Management ◽  
River Basins ◽  
River Regulation ◽  
Large River ◽  
Management Framework ◽  
Biological Communities ◽  
Large River Basins

Abstract. Recently, the provision of food and water resources of two of the world's large river basins, the Murray and the Yangtze, has been significantly altered through widespread landscape modification. Long-term sedimentary archives, dating back to past centuries, from wetlands of these river basins reveal that rapid, basin-wide development has reduced resilience of biological communities, resulting in considerable decline in ecosystem services, including water quality. In particular, large-scale human disturbance to river systems, due to river regulation during the mid-20th century, has transformed the hydrology of rivers and wetlands, causing widespread disturbance to aquatic biological communities. Historical changes of cladoceran zooplankton (water fleas) were used to assess the hydrology and ecology of three Murray and Yangtze River wetlands over the past century. Subfossil assemblages of cladocerans retrieved from sediment cores (94, 45 and 65 cm) of three wetlands: Kings Billabong (Murray), Zhangdu and Liangzi Lakes (Yangtze) strongly responded to hydrological changes of the river after the mid-20th century. River regulation caused by construction of dams and weirs, and river channel modifications has led to hydrological alterations. The hydrological disturbances were either: (1) a prolonged inundation of wetlands, or (2) reduced river flow, which caused variability in wetland depth. These phenomena subsequently transformed the natural wetland habitats, leading to a switch in cladoceran assemblages preferring poor water quality and eutrophication. An adaptive water resource management framework for both of these river basins has been proposed to restore or optimize the conditions of wetland ecosystems impacted by 20th century human disturbance and climate change.

scholarly journals Analysis of Successive Land-Use Changes in Old Residential Area of “Festival of Art & Culture (FESTAC) Town” Lagos, Nigeria

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-57
Author(s):  
Yusuf Alapata Ahmed ◽  
O. Bashirat Olantinwo
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Land Use Changes ◽  
Town Planning ◽  
Neighborhood Characteristics ◽  
Urban Centers ◽  
Current Pattern ◽  
Art And Culture ◽  
Conventional Mapping ◽  
Mapping Techniques ◽  
The Town

In recent times, land use for commercial, residential, and transportation purposes among others is dislodging former units and bare sites as a result of structural alteration, mostly in the urban centers of Nigeria. The changes are due to various guises and structural shift, outright demolition and redevelopment and their impact is consequential. This paper assesses the current pattern which residential zones have assumed within the old Festival of Art and Culture (FESTAC) Town in Lagos, Nigeria. The methods used in the study included the delineation of the study area into six avenues which the researcher(s) adopted for the purpose of even coverage, as well as the use of structural questionnaires, base map and GPS in sourcing for necessary data on the field. Additionally, the data collected were assembled, coded and analyzed using simple descriptive statistics and conventional mapping techniques. The findings revealed the factors responsible for the alteration of land use to enhance financial gains, such as changing neighborhood characteristics and the evasion of permission from the town planning authorities. The findings also provided evidence that many structures still remain vulnerable to conversion, alteration, and/or demolition. The paper recommends that adequate permission should be granted by the legal authority before the conversion and rebuilding of any structure into a new land use.

Flood Vulnerability Assessment in Northwestern Areas of Tehran

2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 699-706
Author(s):  
Manijeh Ghahroudi Tali ◽  
◽  
Jamileh Tavakolinia ◽  
Anita Majidi Heravi ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Construction Projects ◽  
Drainage Basin ◽  
Land Use Changes ◽  
River Basins ◽  
Mountain Range ◽  
River Channels ◽  
Flood Vulnerability ◽  
Vulnerability Map

Many factors affect the flood vulnerability of the northwestern areas of Tehran. Urban infrastructure and the development of urban areas in river basins have changed the natural drainage patterns in the region. This has resulted in flooding, inundation, and higher costs for urban maintenance. Tehran is located on the southern slopes of the Alborz mountain range and downstream from several basins. The expansion of the urban area into elevated areas has exposed the city to many disasters including flooding. Districts 2 and 5 in the northwestern area of Tehran are vulnerable to floods because of their close vicinity to expansive basins, a high proportion of construction projects, a high population and housing density, land use changes, the development of the urban areas in river basins, and the unsuitable exploitation of watercourses. This research used topographic, land use, climatic, and hydrometric data. Criteria were selected, weighted by an analytic hierarchy process, and combined by fuzzy functions to obtain a vulnerability map. To understand the significant factors, we applied water profiles and hydrographs to determine priorities through a multi-layer perceptron network. The final vulnerability map indicated that the most vulnerable areas are outside the urban lands near the river channels. The results also indicated that a combination of urban factors and drainage basin agents intensified the vulnerability of the study area. Although the near channel areas outside the urban areas are more vulnerable to flooding, other factors, including deteriorated fabric, curvature profile, and curvature, are significant in urban areas.

scholarly journals The Long-Term Development of Water Bodies in the Context of Land Use: The Case of the Kyjovka and Trkmanka River Basins (Czech Republic)/ Dlouhodobý vývoj vodních ploch v povodí Kyjovky a Trkmanky v kontextu využití krajiny (Česká republika)

2014 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 39-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marek Havlíček ◽  
Renata Pavelková ◽  
Jindřich Frajer ◽  
Hana Skokanová
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Czech Republic ◽  
River Basin ◽  
Driving Forces ◽  
Land Use Changes ◽  
River Basins ◽  
Water Bodies ◽  
Land Use Development

Abstract The long-term development of water bodies is investigated in this article using the cases of two river basins with similar natural conditions: the Kyjovka and Trkmanka River Basins in the Czech Republic. Using old topographic maps, land use development was assessed and the analysis of driving forces of land use changes was carried out. The essential land use changes in these areas are connected with the processes of agricultural intensification and urbanisation. The largest area of water bodies was recorded in both river basins in 1763. In the second half of the 19th century, the disappearance of most water bodies in the two basins was significantly affected by the above-mentioned driving forces. After World War II, some of the water bodies in the Kyjovka River Basin were restored and new ponds were established. In contrast, no significant water bodies were restored in the Trkmanka River Basin.

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