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How Do Land-Use and Climate Change Affect Watershed Health? A Scenario-Based Analysis

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Abstract

With the growing emphasis on biofuel crops and potential impacts of climate variability and change, there is a need to quantify their effects on hydrological processes for developing watershed management plans. Environmental consequences are currently estimated by utilizing computer models such as Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) to simulate watershed hydrology under projected climate and land-use scenarios to assess the effect on water quantity and/or quality. Such studies have largely been deterministic in nature, with the focus being on whether hydrologic variables such as runoff, sediment and/or nutrient loads increase or decrease from the baseline case under projected scenarios. However, studying how these changes would affect watershed health in a risk-based framework has not been attempted. In this study, impacts of several projected land-use and climate change scenarios on the health of the Wildcat Creek watershed in Indiana have been assessed through three risk indicators, namely reliability–resilience–vulnerability (R–R–V). Results indicate that cultivation of biofuel crops such as Miscanthus and switchgrass has the potential to improve risk indicator values with respect to sediment, total N and total P. Climate change scenarios that involved rising precipitation levels were found to negatively impact watershed health indicators. Trends of water quality constituents under risk-based watershed health assessment revealed nuances not readily apparent from deterministic assessments alone. For example, while biofuel crop cultivation reduced total N loads under all hypothetical land-use scenarios examined in this study, watershed vulnerability in terms of total N also rose in some of those scenarios. Risk-based analyses coupled with deterministic methods are needed for a more comprehensive assessment of the health of a watershed under projected scenarios.

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Acknowledgements

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency through its Office of Research and Development funded and managed the research described here under EPA Contract # EP-C-11-006. It has not been subjected to Agency review and therefore does not necessarily reflect the views of the Agency, and no official endorsement should be inferred.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, 47907, USA

    Yamen M. Hoque & Rao S. Govindaraju

  2. Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, 47907, USA

    Cibin Raj & Indrajeet Chaubey

  3. National Risk Management Research Laboratory, Office of Research and Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Cincinnati, Ohio, 45268, USA

    Mohamed M. Hantush

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  1. Yamen M. Hoque
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  2. Cibin Raj
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  3. Mohamed M. Hantush
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  5. Rao S. Govindaraju
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Correspondence to Yamen M. Hoque.

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Hoque, Y.M., Raj, C., Hantush, M.M. et al. How Do Land-Use and Climate Change Affect Watershed Health? A Scenario-Based Analysis. Water Qual Expo Health 6, 19–33 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12403-013-0102-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12403-013-0102-6

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