Abstract
Runoff is expected to change due to climate and land use change. Because it constitutes a large component of the terrestrial water budget, we need to develop new policies for managing regional water resources. To do so, we must first attribute changes in the natural flow regime to either climate or land use change. In this context, the Budyko’s curve has previously been adopted to separate the impacts of climate and land use change on runoff by using long term hydrological variables. In this study, a framework based on Fu’s equation (which describes Budyko’s curve) is used to separate the impacts of climate and land use change on annual runoff distributions. Specifically, this framework is based on a recently developed method to obtain annual runoff probability density function (pdf) in seasonally dry basins—such as those in Mediterranean regions—from climate statistics and Fu’s equation parameter ω. The effect of climate change is captured through variations in the first order statistics of annual rainfall and potential evapotranspiration, while land use change is represented by changes in Fu’s equation parameter ω. The effects of these two drivers (i.e., climate and land use change) are analyzed by reconstructing the annual runoff pdfs for the current period and for likely future scenarios, based on predictions from global circulation models and urbanization trajectories. The results show that climate change can lead to a strong reduction in mean annual runoff, a shift of the runoff pdf toward lower values, and a decrease in its variance. Concurrent changes in climate and land use almost always result in a reduction in the mean annual runoff, due to the greater impact of climate change on the runoff pdf.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Allen CD, Macalady AK, Chenchouni H, Bachelet D, McDowell N, Vennetier M, ... Gonzalez P (2010) A global overview of drought and heat-induced tree mortality reveals emerging climate change risks for forests. For Ecol Manag 259(4):660–684
Brath A, Montanari A, Moretti G (2006) Assessing the effect on flood frequency of land use change via hydrological simulation (with uncertainty). J Hydrol 324:141–153
Budyko (1961) The heat balance of the earth's surface. Sov Geogr 2:3–13
Budyko (1974) Climate and Life. Academic, San Diego
Caracciolo D, Noto LV, Istanbulluoglu E, Fatichi S, Zhou X (2014) Climate change and Ecotone boundaries: Insights from a cellular automata ecohydrology model in a Mediterranean catchment with topography controlled vegetation patterns. Adv Water Resour 73:159–175
Caracciolo D, Deidda R, Viola F (2017) Analytical estimation of annual runoff distribution in ungauged seasonally dry basins based on a first order Taylor expansion of the Fu’s equation. Adv Water Resour 109:320–332
Caracciolo D, Pumo D, Viola F (2018) Budyko’s based method for annual runoff characterization across different climatic areas: an application to United States. Water Resour Manag 32(9):3189–3202
Ceola S, Laio F, Montanari A (2015) Human-impacted waters: New perspectives from global high-resolution monitoring. Water Resour Res 51:7064–7079. https://doi.org/10.1002/2015WR017482
Ceola S et al (2016) Adaptation of water resources systems to changing society and environment: a statement by the International Association of Hydrological Sciences. Hydrol Sci J 61:2803–2817
Cohen JE (2003) Human population: the next half century. Science 302(5648):1172–1175
Costa MH, Botta A, Cardille JA (2003) Effects of large-scale changes in land cover on the discharge of the Tocantins River, Southeastern Amazonia. J Hydrol 283:206–217. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-1694(03)00267-1
Donat MG, Lowry AL, Alexander LV, O’Gorman PA, Maher N (2017) Addendum: More extreme precipitation in the world's dry and wet regions. Nat Clim Chang 7:154–158
Feng X, Dawson TE, Ackerly DD, Santiago LS, Thompson SE (2017) Reconciling seasonal hydraulic risk and plant water use through probabilistic soil–plant dynamics. Glob Chang Biol 23(9):3758–3769
Fu BP (1981) On the calculation of the evaporation from land surface. Sci Atmos Sin 5:23–31
Hawley RJ, Bledsoe BP (2011) How do flow peaks and durations change in suburbanizing semi-arid watersheds? A southern California case study. J Hydrol 405:69–82
Huntington TG (2006) Evidence for intensification of the global water cycle: review and synthesis. J Hydrol 319:83–95
IPCC (2013) The physical science basis. Contribution of working group I to the fifth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom
Jacobson CR (2011) Identification and quantification of the hydrological impacts of imperviousness in urban catchments: A review. J Environ Manag 92:1438–1448
Jiang C, Xiong L, Wang D, Liu P, Guo S, Xu C-Y (2015) Separating the impacts of climate change and human activities on runoff using the Budyko-type equations with time-varying parameters. J Hydrol 522:326–338
Kokkonen TV, Grimmond CSB, Christen A, Oke TR, Järvi L (2018) Changes to the Water Balance Over a Century of Urban Development in Two Neighborhoods: Vancouver, Canada. Water Resour Res 54:6625–6642. https://doi.org/10.1029/2017WR022445
Kundzewicz ZW et al. (2008) The implications of projected climate change for freshwater resources and their management
Li D, Pan M, Cong Z, Zhang L, Wood E (2013) Vegetation control on water and energy balance within the Budyko framework. Water Resour Res 49:969–976
Liuzzo L, Noto LV, Arnone E, Caracciolo D, La Loggia G (2015) Modifications in water resources availability under climate changes: a case study in a Sicilian basin. Water Resour Manag 29:1117–1135
Moratiel R, Snyder RL, Duran J, Tarquis A (2011) Trends in climatic variables and future reference evapotranspiration in Duero Valley (Spain). Nat Hazards Earth Syst Sci 11:1795–1805
Munafò M et al (2018) Il consumo di suolo. XIV Rapporto ISPRA “Qualità dell’ambiente urbano – Edizione 2018”
Prosdocimi I, Kjeldsen T, Miller J (2015) Detection and attribution of urbanization effect on flood extremes using nonstationary flood-frequency models. Water Resour Res 51:4244–4262
Pumo D, Arnone E, Francipane A, Caracciolo D, Noto LV (2017) Potential implications of climate change and urbanization on watershed hydrology. J Hydrol 554:80–99. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2017.09.002
Pumo D, Viola F, Noto L (2010) Climate changes' effects on vegetation water stress in Mediterranean areas. Ecohydrology 3:166–176
Rose S, Peters NE (2001) Effects of urbanization on streamflow in the Atlanta area (Georgia, USA): a comparative hydrological approach. Hydrol Process 15:1441–1457
Sellami H, Benabdallah S, La Jeunesse I, Vanclooster M (2016) Quantifying hydrological responses of small Mediterranean catchments under climate change projections. Sci Total Environ 543:924–936
Singer MJ, Le Bissonnais Y (1998) Importance of surface sealing in the erosion of some soils from a Mediterranean climate. Geomorphology 24:79–85
Snyman H, Du Preez C (2005) Rangeland degradation in a semi-arid South Africa—II: influence on soil quality. J Arid Environ 60:483–507
UN (2008) United Nations expert group meeting on Population Distribution, Urbanization, Internal Migration and Development. United Nations Population Division. Department of Economic and Social Affairs. United Nations Secretariat. https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/2529P01_UNPopDiv.pdf. Accessed 8 Apr 2019
Viola F, Caracciolo D, Forestieri A, Pumo D, Noto L (2017) Annual runoff assessment in arid and semi-arid Mediterranean watersheds under the Budyko's framework. Hydrol Process
Viola F, Daly E, Vico G, Cannarozzo M, Porporato A (2008) Transient soil-moisture dynamics and climate change in Mediterranean ecosystems. Water Resour Res 44
Xian G, Crane M, McMahon C (2008) Quantifying multi-temporal urban development characteristics in Las Vegas from Landsat and ASTER data. Photogramm Eng Remote Sens 74:473–481
Xu X, Liu W, Scanlon BR, Zhang L, Pan M (2013) Local and global factors controlling water-energy balances within the Budyko framework. Geophys Res Lett 40:6123–6129
Xu X, Yang D, Yang H, Lei H (2014) Attribution analysis based on the Budyko hypothesis for detecting the dominant cause of runoff decline in Haihe basin. J Hydrol 510:530–540
Zhang L, Hickel K, Dawes W, Chiew FH, Western A, Briggs P (2004) A rational function approach for estimating mean annual evapotranspiration. Water Resour Res 40
Funding
Fondazione di Sardegna, F71I17000270002.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of Interest
None.
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Viola, F., Feng, X. & Caracciolo, D. Impacts of Hydrological Changes on Annual Runoff Distribution in Seasonally Dry Basins. Water Resour Manage 33, 2319–2333 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-019-02250-7
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-019-02250-7