Hydrological effects of the increased CO2 and climate change in the Upper Mississippi River Basin using a modified SWAT

Increased atmospheric CO2 concentration and climate change may significantly impact the hydrological and meteorological processes of a watershed system. Quantifying and understanding hydrological responses to elevated ambient CO2 and climate change is, therefore, critical for formulating adaptive strategies for an appropriate management of water resources. In this study, the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model was applied to assess the effects of increased CO2 concentration and climate change in the Upper Mississippi River Basin (UMRB). The standard SWAT model was modified to represent more mechanistic vegetation type specific responses of stomatal conductance reduction and leaf area increase to elevated CO2 based on physiological studies. For estimating the historical impacts of increased CO2 in the recent past decades, the incremental (i.e., dynamic) rises of CO2 concentration at a monthly time-scale were also introduced into the model. Our study results indicated that about 1–4% of the streamflow in the UMRB during 1986 through 2008 could be attributed to the elevated CO2 concentration. In addition to evaluating a range of future climate sensitivity scenarios, the climate projections by four General Circulation Models (GCMs) under different greenhouse gas emission scenarios were used to predict the hydrological effects in the late twenty-first century (2071–2100). Our simulations demonstrated that the water yield would increase in spring and substantially decrease in summer, while soil moisture would rise in spring and decline in summer. Such an uneven distribution of water with higher variability compared to the baseline level (1961–1990) may cause an increased risk of both flooding and drought events in the basin.

[1]  Vincent R. Gray.  Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis Summary for Policymakers , 2007 .

[2]  V. Chaplot.  Water and soil resources response to rising levels of atmospheric CO2 concentration and to changes in precipitation and air temperature , 2007 .

[3]  V. Singh,et al.  The EPIC model. , 1995 .

[4]  S. Sorooshian,et al.  Effective and efficient global optimization for conceptual rainfall‐runoff models , 1992 .

[5]  Christopher B. Field,et al.  Stomatal responses to increased CO2: implications from the plant to the global scale , 1995 .

[6]  C. Priestley,et al.  On the Assessment of Surface Heat Flux and Evaporation Using Large-Scale Parameters , 1972 .

[7]  M. Jha,et al.  CLIMATE CHHANGE SENSITIVITY ASSESSMENT ON UPPER MISSISSIPPI RIVER BASIN STREAMFLOWS USING SWAT 1 , 2006 .

[8]  Y. Copard,et al.  The response of the Mississippi River to climate fluctuations and reservoir construction as indicated by wavelet analysis of streamflow and suspended-sediment load, 1950–1975 , 2009 .

[9]  D. Gerten,et al.  Global effects of doubled atmospheric CO2 content on evapotranspiration, soil moisture and runoff under potential natural vegetation , 2006 .

[10]  Zongxue Xu,et al.  Response of streamflow to climate change in the headwater catchment of the Yellow River basin , 2009 .

[11]  John R. Williams,et al.  LARGE AREA HYDROLOGIC MODELING AND ASSESSMENT PART I: MODEL DEVELOPMENT 1 , 1998 .

[12]  Raghavan Srinivasan,et al.  Evaluation of global optimization algorithms for parameter calibration of a computationally intensive hydrologic model , 2009 .

[13]  John R. Williams,et al.  A method for estimating the direct and climatic effects of rising atmospheric carbon dioxide on growth and yield of crops: Part I--Modification of the EPIC model for climate change analysis , 1992 .

[14]  H. Douville,et al.  Impact of doubled CO2 on global‐scale leaf area index and evapotranspiration: Conflicting stomatal conductance and LAI responses , 2002 .

[15]  David Yates,et al.  Modeling the Hydrology of Climate Change in California’s Sierra Nevada for Subwatershed Scale Adaptation 1 , 2009 .

[16]  K. Eckhardt,et al.  Potential impacts of climate change on groundwater recharge and streamflow in a central European low mountain range , 2003 .

[17]  Jeffrey G. Arnold,et al.  Soil and Water Assessment Tool Theoretical Documentation Version 2009 , 2011 .

[18]  Andrew N. Sharpley,et al.  EPIC, Erosion/Productivity Impact Calculator , 1990 .

[19]  J. Houghton,et al.  Climate change 2001 : the scientific basis , 2001 .

[20]  M. Noguer,et al.  Climate change 2001: The scientific basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change , 2002 .

[21]  Claudio O. Stöckle,et al.  A method for estimating the direct and climatic effects of rising atmospheric carbon dioxide on growth and yield of crops: Part II—Sensitivity analysis at three sites in the Midwestern USA , 1992 .

[22]  R D Hoak,et al.  Water Resources , 1961, Nature.

[23]  J. Arnold,et al.  VALIDATION OF THE SWAT MODEL ON A LARGE RWER BASIN WITH POINT AND NONPOINT SOURCES 1 , 2001 .

[24]  John R. Williams,et al.  EPIC-erosion/productivity impact calculator: 1. Model documentation. , 1990 .

[25]  Jeffrey G. Arnold,et al.  The Soil and Water Assessment Tool: Historical Development, Applications, and Future Research Directions , 2007 .

[26]  R. Hotchkiss,et al.  Hydrological response to climate change in the Black Hills of South Dakota, USA , 2001 .

[27]  J. Nash,et al.  River flow forecasting through conceptual models part I — A discussion of principles☆ , 1970 .

[28]  A. van Griensven,et al.  Autocalibration in hydrologic modeling: Using SWAT2005 in small-scale watersheds , 2008, Environ. Model. Softw..

[29]  William E. Easterling,et al.  Preparing the erosion productivity impact calculator (EPIC) model to simulate crop response to climate change and the direct effects of CO2 , 1992 .

[30]  Gregory J. McCabe,et al.  ESTIMATES OF RUNOFF USING WATER‐BALANCE AND ATMOSPHERIC GENERAL CIRCULATION MODELS 1 , 1999 .

[31]  Silvia Secchi,et al.  Upper Mississippi River Basin Modeling System Part 3: Conservation Practice Scenario Results , 2006 .

[32]  M. J. Hall,et al.  Rainfall-Runoff Modelling , 2004 .

[33]  B. Bates,et al.  Climate change and water. , 2008 .

[34]  Eike Luedeling,et al.  Climate change sensitivity assessment of a highly agricultural watershed using SWAT , 2009 .

[35]  S. Wand,et al.  Responses of wild C4 and C3 grass (Poaceae) species to elevated atmospheric CO2 concentration: a meta‐analytic test of current theories and perceptions , 1999 .

[36]  George H. Hargreaves,et al.  Reference Crop Evapotranspiration from Temperature , 1985 .

[37]  N. Arnell,et al.  Hydrology and water resources , 2001 .

[38]  D. Ellsworth,et al.  Tree and forest functioning in an enriched CO2 atmosphere , 1998 .

[39]  M. Jha,et al.  Impacts of Climate Change on Stream Flow in the Upper Mississippi River Basin: A Regional Climate Model Perspective, The , 2003 .

[40]  R. Betts,et al.  Detection of a direct carbon dioxide effect in continental river runoff records , 2006, Nature.

[41]  Sihem Benabdallah,et al.  Application of the SWAT model on the Medjerda river basin (Tunisia) , 2005 .

[42]  Marvin E. Jensen,et al.  Operational estimates of reference evapotranspiration , 1989 .

[43]  M. Arabi,et al.  Representation of agricultural conservation practices with SWAT , 2008 .

[44]  Jeffrey G. Arnold,et al.  Model Evaluation Guidelines for Systematic Quantification of Accuracy in Watershed Simulations , 2007 .

[45]  G. J. Collatz,et al.  Comparison of Radiative and Physiological Effects of Doubled Atmospheric CO2 on Climate , 1996, Science.

[46]  Jean-Luc Probst,et al.  Evidence for global runoff increase related to climate warming , 2004 .

[47]  J. Palutikof,et al.  Climate change 2007 : impacts, adaptation and vulnerability , 2001 .

[48]  Misgana K. Muleta,et al.  Sensitivity and uncertainty analysis coupled with automatic calibration for a distributed watershed model , 2005 .

[49]  João Rocha,et al.  Soil and Water Assessment Tool "SWAT" , 2008, Encyclopedia of GIS.

[50]  H. L. Miller,et al.  Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis , 2007 .

[51]  R. Srinivasan,et al.  A global sensitivity analysis tool for the parameters of multi-variable catchment models , 2006 .

[52]  V. Singh,et al.  Computer Models of Watershed Hydrology , 1995 .

[53]  J. Morison,et al.  Intercellular CO_2 Concentration and Stomatal Response to CO_2 , 1987 .

[54]  Richard G. Allen,et al.  A Penman for All Seasons , 1986 .

[55]  Raghavan Srinivasan,et al.  Regional estimation of base flow and groundwater recharge in the Upper Mississippi river basin , 2000 .

[56]  Susan E. Lee,et al.  Contrasting physiological and structural vegetation feedbacks in climate change simulations , 1997, Nature.

[57]  E. Maurer,et al.  The Sensitivity of California Water Resources to Climate Change Scenarios 1 , 2007 .

[58]  H. Rogers,et al.  Elevated CO2 and plant structure: a review , 1999 .

[59]  Cynthia Rosenzweig,et al.  Potential evapotranspiration and the likelihood of future drought , 1990 .

[60]  J. Arnold,et al.  HYDROLOGICAL MODELING OF THE IROQUOIS RIVER WATERSHED USING HSPF AND SWAT 1 , 2005 .

[61]  R. Ceulemans,et al.  Stomatal conductance of forest species after long-term exposure to elevated CO2 concentration: a synthesis. , 2001, The New phytologist.

[62]  D. Legates,et al.  Comments on “Evidence for global runoff increase related to climate warming” by Labat et al. , 2005 .

[63]  Corinne Le Quéré,et al.  Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis , 2013 .

[64]  R M Gifford,et al.  Stomatal sensitivity to carbon dioxide and humidity: a comparison of two c(3) and two c(4) grass species. , 1983, Plant physiology.

[65]  Olivier Boucher,et al.  Projected increase in continental runoff due to plant responses to increasing carbon dioxide , 2007, Nature.