Simulating climate change and socio-economic change impacts on flows and water quality in the Mahanadi River system, India

Jin, Li; Whitehead, Paul; Rodda, Harvey J. E.; Macadam, Ian; Sarkar, Sananda

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.04.349

Cited by 51 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…Babar and Ramesh, (2015) estimated an increase in runoff (0.9%) and decrease in ET (4.5%) due to the conversion of forest to agriculture and built up areas in Ganga basin in India. The population of India is expected to increase by an average of 36% in the 2050's and by 108% at 2090's thereby rendering changes to agriculture and water demand (Jin et al, 2018). Many river basins of India that have undergone drastic 75 land cover transformation over the years have been facing extreme hydrological events like floods and droughts in recent times.…”

Section: Context and Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying the impact of land cover changes on hydrological extremes in India

Naha

Rico‐Ramirez

Rosolem

2020

Preprint

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Abstract. Several research studies have addressed the effects of future climate changes on the hydrological regime of Mahanadi river basin located in eastern part of India. However, studies investigating the effects of future land cover changes on hydrology are limited owing to the lack of availability of projected land cover scenarios. Our study investigates how the hydrology of Mahanadi river basin would respond to the current and future land cover scenarios under a large-scale hydrological modelling framework. Both historical and future land cover scenarios from the recently released, Land use Harmonisation (LUH2) project for CMIP6, indicates cropland and forest are the major land cover types in the basin with a noticeable increase in the cropland (23.3 %) at the expense of forest (22.65 %) by the end of year 2100 compared to the baseline year, 2005. A physically semi-distributed model, the Variable Infiltration Capacity has been set up and implemented over the Mahanadi river basin system for the time period 1990–2010. The uncertain model parameters were subjected to Sensitivity Analysis and calibrated within a Monte Carlo framework. The best set of calibrated models obtained is used in conjunction with the harmonized set of present and future land use scenarios from LUH2 at 25 km by 25 km resolution to generate an ensemble of model simulations that captures a range of plausible impacts of land cover changes on discharge and other hydrological components of the basin. Overall, model simulation results indicate an increase in the extreme flows (i.e., 95th percentile or higher) in the range of 0.12 to 21 % at multiple subcatchments within the basin. This increase can be attributed to the direct conversion of forested areas to agriculture (on the order of 30,000 km2) that has reduced the Leaf Area Index and subsequently reduces the Evapotranspiration (ET). These changes ultimately affect other water balance components at the land surface, resulting in an increase in surface runoff and baseflow, respectively.

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Section: Context and Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying the impact of land cover changes on hydrological extremes in India

Naha

Rico‐Ramirez

Rosolem

2020

Preprint

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“…Integrated Catchment Model (INCA) [49] historical flows, nitrogen and phosphorus concentration, population, GDP.…”

Section: Watermentioning

confidence: 99%

Building Regional Sustainable Development Scenarios with the SSP Framework

Shi

Cui

2019

Sustainability

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Climate change is having an increasing effect on human society and ecosystems. The United Nations has established 17 sustainable development goals, one of which is to cope with climate change. How to scientifically explore uncertainties and hazards brought about by climate change in the future is crucial. The new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has proposed shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) to project climate change scenarios. SSP has been analyzed globally, but how regions and nations respond to the global climate change and mitigation policies is seldom explored, which do not meet the demand for regional environmental assessment and social sustainable development. Therefore, in this paper, we reviewed and discussed how SSPs were applied to regions, and this can be summarized into four main categories: (1) integrated assessment model (IAM) scenario analysis, (2) SSPs-RCPs-SPAs framework scenario analysis, (3) downscaling global impact assessment model, and (4) regional impact assessment model simulation. The study provides alternative ways to project land use, water resource, energy, and ecosystem service in regions, which can carry out related policies and actions to address climate change in advance and help achieve sustainable development.

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“…Bangladesh (Jin et al, 2015(Jin et al, , 2018aWhitehead et al, 2015bWhitehead et al, , 2018b, as well as highly polluted rivers in Dhaka, Bangladesh (Whitehead et al, 2018a). The major applications of 191…”

Section: Inca Flow and Water Quality Modellingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In order to consider the impacts on the Mekong, here we apply a dynamic, process-based model of flow and water quality to the entire catchment of the Mekong River system. The Integrated Catchment (INCA) suite of models a, b, Whitehead et al,1998a, b, Wade et al, 2002) is a dynamic process-based modelling system that accounts for the highly non-linear nature of large, complex rivers, integrating flow, water quality and ecology (Jin et al, 2018aa, b Pathak et al, 2018. The main objectives of the study have been to evaluate the impacts of climate change and socioeconomic change on future hydrology and nutrient fluxes in the Mekong River and assess the altered fluxes entering the Vietnam Delta System.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Water Quality Modelling of the Mekong River Basin: Climate Change and Socioeconomics Drive Flow and Nutrient Flux Changes to the Mekong Delta

Jin¹

2019

Geological Society of America Abstracts With Programs

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The Mekong delta is recognised as one of the world's most vulnerable mega-deltas, being subject to a range of environmental pressures including sea level rise, increasing population, and changes in flows and nutrients from its upland catchment. With changing climate and socioeconomics there is a need to assess how the Mekong catchment will be affected in terms of the delivery of water and nutrients into the delta system. Here we apply the Integrated Catchment model (INCA) to the whole Mekong River Basin to simulate flow and water quality, including nitrate, ammonia, total phosphorus and soluble reactive phosphorus. The impacts of climate change on all these variables have been assessed across 24 river reaches ranging from the Himalayas down to the delta in Vietnam. We used the UK Met Office PRECIS regionally coupled climate model to downscale precipitation and temperature to the Mekong catchment. This was accomplished using the Global Circulation Model GFDL-CM to provide the boundary conditions under two carbon control strategies, namely representative concentration pathways (RCP) 4.5 and a RCP 8.5 scenario. The RCP 4.5 scenario represents the carbon strategy required to meet the Paris Accord, which aims to limit peak global temperatures to below a 2 o C rise while seeking to pursue options that limit temperature rise to 1.5 o C. The RCP 8.5 scenario is associated with a larger 3-4 o C rise. In addition, we also constructed a range of socioeconomic scenarios to investigate the potential impacts of changing population, atmospheric pollution, economic growth and land use change up to the 2050s. Results of INCA simulations indicate increases in mean flows of up to 24%, with flood flows in the monsoon period increasing by up to 27%, but with increasing periods of drought up to 2050. A shift in the timing of the monsoon is also simulated, with a 4 week advance in the onset of monsoon flows on average. Decreases in nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations occur primarily due to flow dilution, but fluxes of these nutrients also increase by 5%, which reflects the changing flow, land use change and population changes.

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Simulating climate change and socio-economic change impacts on flows and water quality in the Mahanadi River system, India

Cited by 51 publications

References 48 publications

Quantifying the impact of land cover changes on hydrological extremes in India

Quantifying the impact of land cover changes on hydrological extremes in India

Building Regional Sustainable Development Scenarios with the SSP Framework

Water Quality Modelling of the Mekong River Basin: Climate Change and Socioeconomics Drive Flow and Nutrient Flux Changes to the Mekong Delta

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