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Separation and attribution of impacts of changes in land use and climate on hydrological processes

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Abstract

This study aims to assess, compare, and attribute the effects due to separate and combined land use/land cover (LULC) and climate changes on hydrological processes in a tropical catchment. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model is set up and calibrated for a small contributing sub-basin of the Tana River Basin (TRB) in Kenya. The model is then applied to simulate the hydrological components (i.e., streamflow (FLOW), evapotranspiration (ET), soil water (SW), and water yield (WYLD)) for different combinations of LULC and climate scenarios. Land use data generated from Land Satellite 5 Thematic Mapper (Landsat 5TM) images for two different periods (1987 and 2011) and satellite-based precipitation data from the African Rainfall Climatology version 2 (ARC2) dataset are utilized as inputs to the SWAT model. The Nash–Sutcliffe model efficiency (NSE), coefficient of determination (R2), percent bias (PBIAS), and the ratio of root mean square error to the standard deviation (RSR) for daily streamflow were 0.73, 0.76, 3.16%, and 0.51 in calibration period, respectively, and 0.45, 0.54, 12.53%, and 0.79 in validation period, respectively, suggesting that the model performed relatively good. An analysis of the LULC data for the catchment showed that there was an increase in agricultural, grassland, and forested land with a concomitant decrease in woodland and shrubland. Simulation results revealed that change in climate had a more significant effect on the simulated parameters than the change in LULC. It is shown that changes in LULC only had very minor effects in the simulated parameters. The monthly mean FLOW and WYLD decreased by 0.02% and 0.11%, respectively, while ET and SW increased by a monthly mean of 0.2% and 2.2%. Varying the catchment climate and holding the land use constant reduced FLOW, ET, SW, and WYLD by an average monthly mean of 43.2%, 21%, 13%, and 70%, respectively, indicating that climate changes have more significant effects on the catchment hydrological processes than changes in LULC. Thus, it is necessary to evaluate and identify the isolated and combined effects of LULC and climatic changes when assessing impacts on the TRB’s hydrological processes.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from Quoc Bao Pham, phambaoquoc@tdmu.edu.vn, upon reasonable request.

Code availability

Code is available from Quoc Bao Pham, phambaoquoc@tdmu.edu.vn, upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors extend their thanks to anonymous reviewers.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. International Joint Research Laboratory On Climate and Environment Change, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology (NUIST), Ningliu Road 219, 210044, Nanjing, China

    Francis Polong

  2. Kenya Industrial Research and Development Institute, P.O. Box 30650-00100, Nairobi, Kenya

    Francis Polong

  3. College of Natural Resources and Environment Studies, University of Juba, P.O. Box 82, Juba, South Sudan

    Khidir Deng

  4. Institute of Applied Technology, Thu Dau Mot University, Binh Duong province, Vietnam

    Quoc Bao Pham

  5. Faculty of Natural Sciences, Institute of Earth Sciences, University of Silesia in Katowice, Będzińska street 60, 41-200, Sosnowiec, Poland

    Nguyen Thi Thuy Linh

  6. Interdisciplinary Research Center for Membranes and Water Security, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia

    S. I. Abba

  7. Institute of Energy Infrastructure (IEI), Civil Engineering Department, College of Engineering, University Tenaga Nasional (UNITEN), Kajang 43000, Selangor, Malaysia

    Ali Najah Ahmed

  8. Laboratory of Environmental Sciences and Climate Change, Institute for Computational Science and Artificial Intelligence, Van Lang University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

    Duong Tran Anh

  9. Faculty of Environment, Van Lang University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

    Duong Tran Anh

  10. Department of Civil Engineering, College of Engineering, King Khalid University, Abha, 61421, Saudi Arabia

    Khaled Mohamed Khedher

  11. Department of Civil Engineering, High Institute of Technological Studies, Mrezgua University Campus, 8000, Nabeul, Tunisia

    Khaled Mohamed Khedher

  12. Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya (UM), 50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

    Ahmed El-Shafie

  13. National Water and Energy Center (NWC), United Arab Emirates University, P.O. Box. 15551, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates

    Ahmed El-Shafie

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  1. Francis Polong
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  4. Nguyen Thi Thuy Linh
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  5. S. I. Abba
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  6. Ali Najah Ahmed
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  7. Duong Tran Anh
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  9. Ahmed El-Shafie
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Contributions

Francis Polong: project administration, conceptualization, writing—original draft, software, formal analysis, visualization. Khidir Deng, Quoc Bao Pham, Nguyen Thi Thuy Linh, S.I. Abba, Ali Najah Ahmed: formal analysis; writing—original draft, visualization. Khaled Mohamed Khedher: data curation, writing, review and editing. Duong Tran Anh, Ahmed El-Shafie: supervision, writing, review, editing.

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Polong, F., Deng, K., Pham, Q.B. et al. Separation and attribution of impacts of changes in land use and climate on hydrological processes. Theor Appl Climatol 151, 1337–1353 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-022-04351-7

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