A coupled terrestrial and aquatic biogeophysical model of the Upper Merrimack River watershed, New Hampshire, to inform ecosystem services evaluation and management under climate and land-cover change

Abstract

ABSTRACT. Accurate quantification of ecosystem services (ES) at regional scales is increasingly important for making informed decisions in the face of environmental change. We linked terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem process models to simulate the spatial and temporal distribution of hydrological and water quality characteristics related to ecosystem services. The linked model integrates two existing models (a forest ecosystem model and a river network model) to establish consistent responses to changing drivers across climate, terrestrial, and aquatic domains. The linked model is spatially distributed, accounts for terrestrial-aquatic and upstreamdownstream linkages, and operates on a daily time-step, all characteristics needed to understand regional responses. The model was applied to the diverse landscapes of the Upper Merrimack River watershed, New Hampshire, USA. Potential changes in future environmental functions were evaluated using statistically downscaled global climate model simulations (both a high and low emission scenario) coupled with scenarios of changing land cover (centralized vs. dispersed land development) for the time period of 1980-2099. Projections of climate, land cover, and water quality were translated into a suite of environmental indicators that represent conditions relevant to important ecosystem services and were designed to be readily understood by the public. Model projections show that climate will have a greater influence on future aquatic ecosystem services (flooding, drinking water, fish habitat, and nitrogen export) than plausible changes in land cover. Minimal changes in aquatic environmental indicators are predicted through 2050, after which the high emissions scenarios show intensifying impacts. The spatially distributed modeling approach indicates that heavily populated portions of the watershed will show the strongest responses. Management of land cover could attenuate some of the changes associated with climate change and should be considered in future planning for the region.

Impacts of Climate Change and Urban Expansion on Hydrologic Ecosystem Services in the Milwaukee River Basin

“…Climate change, unlike LULC change, has quite large impacts on hydrologic simulations [31] and ES. Fan et al [29] found the climate scenario results in much more water yield than LULC scenario as future climate scenario created consistently increased water yield while LULC increased and then decreased water yield.…”

“…A comprehensive, temporally explicit framework that couples hydrologic and ES modeling would effectively accelerate the ES modeling processes. Studies have been conducted with a few different types of hydrologic and ES models for hydrologic ES [28][29][30][31][32]. Cline et al [24] combined a hydrologic model with an ES model to evaluate the spatial and temporal patterns of fish density in the resident fish populations.…”

A Conceptual Modeling Framework for Hydrologic Ecosystem Services

“…With the ability of this framework to simulate monthly and seasonal ES output, these extreme events could be captured and related remedies could be designed. Unlike previous ES studies [16,21], the flooding regulation ES simulated in this study can not only predict the flooding risk per year but also pinpoint the months and seasons when regulation for ES should be applied.…”

“…The first hydrologic ES variable is water provision ES. Limited studies have been conducted with a focus on water-related ES [14][15][16][17][18], with only a few of them on a seasonal or monthly basis [19,20]. Compared to Notter et al [19], who used monthly hydrologic results to calculate the ES indices, this study not only uses daily hydrologic data but also produces monthly and seasonal ES indices which can provide more detailed information for decision makers.…”

Influence of meteorological factors on ecosystem services value: a case study of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, China

“…Based on the value assessment of land use and value coefficient, changes in land use will inevitably lead to changes in the value of ecological service, but it cannot reflect the intrinsic driving factors of the changes in the value of ecological service. Climate was very important to the spatial distribution of ecological service value [11][12][13], especially water-related ecosystem services [14][15][16][17]. In some studies, the selection of influencing factors was relatively casual, and the multicollinearity problem between the influencing factors was not considered.…”