A Comprehensive Land-Use/Hydrological Modeling System for Scenario Simulations in the Elbow River Watershed, Alberta, Canada

Abstract

The Elbow River watershed in Alberta covers an area of 1,238 km(2) and represents an important source of water for irrigation and municipal use. In addition to being located within the driest area of southern Canada, it is also subjected to considerable pressure for land development due to the rapid population growth in the City of Calgary. In this study, a comprehensive modeling system was developed to investigate the impact of past and future land-use changes on hydrological processes considering the complex surface-groundwater interactions existing in the watershed. Specifically, a spatially explicit land-use change model was coupled with MIKE SHE/MIKE 11, a distributed physically based catchment and channel flow model. Following a rigorous sensitivity analysis along with the calibration and validation of these models, four land-use change scenarios were simulated from 2010 to 2031: business as usual (BAU), new development concentrated within the Rocky View County (RV-LUC) and in Bragg Creek (BC-LUC), respectively, and development based on projected population growth (P-LUC). The simulation results reveal that the rapid urbanization and deforestation create an increase in overland flow, and a decrease in evapotranspiration (ET), baseflow, and infiltration mainly in the east sub-catchment of the watershed. The land-use scenarios affect the hydrology of the watershed differently. This study is the most comprehensive investigation of its nature done so far in the Elbow River watershed. The results obtained are in accordance with similar studies conducted in Canadian contexts. The proposed modeling system represents a unique and flexible framework for investigating a variety of water related sustainability issues.

Change of Land Use/Cover in Tianjin City Based on the Markov and Cellular Automata Models

“…One of the characteristics of CA is the ability to investigate model dynamics under different model parameters which provide different movement regimes [26]. Using the CA model and GIS analysis, LULC changes can be used to simulate landscapes in the future based on independent spatial variables [27]. Although the CA model has many advantages, it suffers from difficulties such as determining parameter values [28].…”

An Integrated Modelling System to Predict Hydrological Processes under Climate and Land-Use/Cover Change Scenarios

“…Other studies have focused on the impact of LULC change on hydrology (e.g., [28,29]). Changes in LULC patterns, obtained from either LULC change modeling or hypothetical scenarios, are incorporated into hydrological models.…”

“…Changes in LULC patterns, obtained from either LULC change modeling or hypothetical scenarios, are incorporated into hydrological models. These models range from simple rainfall-runoff models such as those based on unit hydrographs [30] that provide limited information on the relationship between LULC patterns and hydrological components [31], to distributed physically based models such as MIKE SHE [32] that represent the spatial variability of the surface and subsurface along with their interactions in a watershed [29]. For instance, Wijesekara et al [29] employed a distributed physically based MIKE SHE/MIKE 11 model to investigate the response of hydrological processes to four scenarios of LULC change while assuming the climate remains stationary.…”

Nitrogen and phosphorus transformations and balance in a pond-ditch circulation system for rural polluted water treatment

“…The coupling of unsaturated zone and saturated zone, which is not involved in the conceptual models, efficiently integrates the surface water and groundwater on a physical basis, allowing it to meet the requirements of simulating regions of more complicated hydrological processes (Christiaens and Feyen, 2001;Doummar et al, 2012;Sørensen, 1996) and allowing for the solution of more comprehensive hydrological issues of water resources management. With respect to the hydrological modeling of landscape changes, the changed parameters of MIKE SHE, unlike in previous conceptual models, have clear physical meanings and detailed input and output clearly articulate the spatial heterogeneity and time continuity of different hydrological processes, making hydrological forecasts more realistic (Kalantari et al, 2014;Sultana and Coulibaly, 2011;Vansteenkiste et al, 2013;Wijesekara et al, 2014).…”

“…In that case, physically based models, which are independent of historical statistics and are able to change the model depending on modification of the specific parameters according to changes in the environmental factors, are necessary in order to provide a more confident prediction. Consequently, predictions employing the MIKE SHE model have become more and more popular in recent years, as in studies of the impact of past and future land-use changes on hydrological processes related to the complex surface-groundwater interactions in the watershed of the Elbow River, covering an area of 1238 km in Alberta (Wijesekara et al, 2014); a simulation study demonstrating how the composition and configuration of land use measures affect discharge at the catchment outlet differently in response to storms of different sizes (Kalantari et al, 2014); an assessment of the respective impacts of land use change and climate change on decadal streamflow through use of three complementary models (Wang et al, 2013); a predction of land use and climate change influence on groundwater and ecosystems at the middle reaches of the Tarim River (Keilholz et al, 2015).…”