Climate Change Impacts on the Hydrological Processes of a Small Agricultural Watershed

Mehan, Sushant; Kannan, Narayanan; Neupane, Ram Prasad; McDaniel, Rachel; Kumar, Sandeep

doi:10.3390/cli4040056

Cited by 35 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…Skunk Creek is a main tributary to the Big Sioux River, which is a tributary of the Missouri River. Silt loam and silty clay loam under hydrologic soil group B are the dominant soils in the watershed (Mehan, Kanan, Neupane, McDaniel, & Kumar, ; NRCS, ). Over the last few decades (e.g., between 1951 and 2013), mean annual rainfall in Eastern South Dakota varied between 550 and 700 mm (Kibria, Ahiablame, Hay, & Djira, ), and daily mean temperature ranged from −17°C in winter to more than 30°C in summer (Hong, ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modelling the impacts of grassland to cropland conversion on river flow regimes in Skunk Creek watershed, Upper Midwest United States

Ahiablame

Sheshukov

Mosase

et al. 2019

River Research & Apps

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Conversion of grassland to cultivated cropland has been linked to downstream alteration of flow regimes. This study used the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) to construct seven "what if" scenarios for quantifying the impacts of grassland to cropland and vice versa conversion (i.e., replacement of grassland with selected agricultural crops) on river flow regimes in Skunk Creek watershed. The Cropland Data Layer for the year 2011 in conjunction with historical climate data was used to create SWAT models for scenario simulations over 19 years, from 1996 to 2014. The model developed for the historical climate records (baseline) was compared with the scenarios examined using stream flow metrics for a range of flow regimes, including magnitude, duration, frequency, and timing of annual low-and high-flow conditions. The simulation results suggest that grassland conversion to cultivated cropland would generally increase river flows compared with conversion of cultivated cropland to grassland, which may reduce flows in the watershed. Low and moderate flows increased by 2-8% from the baseline scenario with conversion of grass crop and by 1-20% decreases with crop-grass conversion. High flows increased by 3-7% and decreased by 1-18% when grass is converted to crop and crop to grass, respectively.The analysis also suggests that grassland establishment may attenuate the peaks of prolonged small floods and shorter but earlier large floods.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modelling the impacts of grassland to cropland conversion on river flow regimes in Skunk Creek watershed, Upper Midwest United States

Ahiablame

Sheshukov

Mosase

et al. 2019

River Research & Apps

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show abstract

“…The historical period for both sources was 1950-2005 and future climate projections were for 2006-2099. Data from both sources were statistically downscaled from the set of GCMs and have been used in previous climate change studies [24,28,29]. The sources provide fine spatial resolution translations of climate projections over the United States based on the multi-model dataset referenced in the IPCC AR 5 (CMIP5) to an extent of 0.25 and 0.04 degrees, sufficient for regional climate impact assessment studies [30].…”

Section: Data Acquisitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reliable Future Climatic Projections for Sustainable Hydro-Meteorological Assessments in the Western Lake Erie Basin

Mehan¹,

Gitau

Flanagan

2019

Water

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Modeling efforts to simulate hydrologic processes under different climate conditions rely on accurate input data. Among other inaccuracies, errors in climate projections can lead to incorrect decisions. This study aimed to develop a reliable climate (precipitation and temperature) database for the Western Lake Erie Basin for the 21st century. Two statistically downscaled bias-corrected sources of climate projections (GDO: Global Downscaled Climate and Hydrology Projections and MACA: Multivariate Adaptive Constructed Analogs) were tested for their effectiveness in simulating historic climate (1966–2005) using ground-based station data from the National Climatic Data Center. MACA was found to have less bias than GDO and was better at simulating selected climate indices; thus, its climate projections were subsequently tested with different bias correction methods including the power transformation method, variance scaling of temperature, and Stochastic Weather Generators. The power transformation method outperformed the other methods and was used in bias corrections for 2006 to 2099. From the analysis, mean daily precipitation values were expected to remain more or less the same under both RCP (Representative Concentration Pathway) 4.5 and RCP 8.5 scenarios, ranging between 2.4 mm and 3.2 mm, while standard deviations were expected to increase, pointing to a rescaling of the distribution. Maximum one-day precipitation was expected to increase and could vary between 120 and 650 mm across the basin, while the number of wet days could potentially increase under the effects of RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5. Both mean maximum and mean minimum daily air temperatures were expected to increase by up to 5.0 °C across the basin, while absolute maximum and minimum values could increase by more than 10 °C. The number of days in which precipitation could potentially fall as snow was expected to decrease, as was the annual number of days for optimal corn growth, although an earlier start to the growing season could be expected. Results from this study were very useful in creating a reliable climate database for the entire Western Lake Erie Basin (WLEB), which can be used for hydrologic, water resources, and other applications in the basin. The resulting climate database is published and accessible through the Purdue University Research Repository (Mehan et al., 2019), which is an open-access repository.

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“…Sci. Discuss., https://doi.org /10.5194/hess-2018-204 (Cousino et al, 2015;Ficklin et al, 2009;Mehan et al, 2016). The sources provide fine spatial resolution translations of climate projections over the United States based on the multi-model dataset referenced in the IPCC AR 5 (CMIP5) to an extent of 0.25 and 0.04 degrees, sufficient for regional climate impact assessment studies.…”

Section: Study Site and Climatology 15mentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of reliable future climatic projections to assess hydro-meteorological implications in the Western Lake Erie Basin

Mehan

Gitau

Flanagan

2018

Preprint

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Abstract. Modeling efforts to simulate hydrologic processes under different climate conditions rely on accurate input data; inaccuracies in climate projections can lead to incorrect decisions. This study aimed to develop a reliable climate 10 (precipitation and temperature) database for the Western Lake Erie Basin (WLEB) for the 21 st century. Two statistically downscaled bias-corrected sources of climate projections (GDO and MACA) were tested for their effectiveness in simulating historic climate using ground-based station data from the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). MACA was found to have less bias than GDO and was better in simulating certain climate indices, thus, its climate projections were subsequently tested with different bias correction methods including the power transformation method, variance scaling of 15 temperature, and Stochastic Weather Generators. The power transformation method outperformed the other methods and was used in bias corrections for 2006 to 2099. From the analysis, maximum one-day precipitation could vary between 120 and 650 mm across the basin, while the number of days with no precipitation could reduce by 5-15 % under the RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5. The number of wet sequences could increase up to 9 times and the conditional probability of having a wet day followed by wet day could decrease by 25%. The maximum and minimum daily air temperatures could increase by 2-12 % 20 while the annual number of days for optimal corn growth could decrease by 0-10 days. The resulting climate database will be made accessible through an open-access platform.

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Climate Change Impacts on the Hydrological Processes of a Small Agricultural Watershed

Cited by 35 publications

References 46 publications

Modelling the impacts of grassland to cropland conversion on river flow regimes in Skunk Creek watershed, Upper Midwest United States

Modelling the impacts of grassland to cropland conversion on river flow regimes in Skunk Creek watershed, Upper Midwest United States

Reliable Future Climatic Projections for Sustainable Hydro-Meteorological Assessments in the Western Lake Erie Basin

Development of reliable future climatic projections to assess hydro-meteorological implications in the Western Lake Erie Basin

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