Abstract
This study uses an integrative approach to study the water-quality impacts of future global climate and land-use changes. In this study, changing land-use types was used as a mitigation strategy to reduce the adverse impacts of global climate change on water resources. The climate scenarios were based on projections made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the United Kingdom Hadley Centre’s climate model (HadCM2). The Thornthwaite waterbalance model was coupled with a land-use model (LTHIA) to investigate the hydrologic effects of future climate and land-use changes in the Ohio River Basin. The land-use model is based on the Soil Conservation Service’s curve-number method. It uses the curve number, an index of land use and soil type, to calculate runoff volume and depth. The Arc View programming language, A venue, was used to integrate the two models into a geographic information system (GIS). An output of the water-balance model, daily precipitation values adjusted for potential evapotranspiration, served as one of the inputs into the land-use model. Two watersheds were used in the present study: one containing the city of Cincinnati on the main stem of the Ohio River, and one containing the city of Columbus on a tributary of the Ohio River. These cities represent two major metropolitan areas in the Ohio River Basin with different land uses experiencing different rates of population growth. The projected hypothetical land-use changes were based on linear extrapolations of current population data. Results of the analyses indicate that conversion from agricultural land use to low-density residential land use may decrease the amount of surface runoff. The land-use practices which generate the least amo.unt of runoff are forest, low-density residential, and agriculture; whereas high-density residential and commercial land-use types produce the highest runoff. The hydrologic soil type present was also an important factor in determining the amount of runoff and non-point-source pollution. A runoff-depth matrix and total nitrogen matrix were created for Cincinnati and Columbus to describe possible land-use mitigation measures in response to global climate change. The differences in Cincinnati and Cohunbus were due to differences in geographic location, air temperature, and total runoff. The results of this study may be useful to planners and policy makers for defining the possible impacts of future global climate and land-use changes on water resources.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Arnold JG, Williams JR, Srinivasan R, King KW (1995) SWAT: Soil Water Assessment Tool. Texas A&M University
Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies (1999) The cost of clean: meeting water quality challenges in the new millennium. AMSA Publication, Washington, D.C.
Bhaduri B, Grove M, Lowry C, Harbor J (1997) Assessing longterm hydrologic effects of land use change. JAWWA 89(11):94–106
Burellu of the Census (1993) 1990 Census of population and housing. 1990 CPH-2-1
Chow VT, Maidment DR, Mays LW (1988) Applied hydrology. McGraw-Hill, New York
Cohen SJ (1986) Impacts of C02-induced climatic change on water resources in the Great Lakes Basin. Clim Change 8:135–153
Francfort J, Rinehart B (1994) Protecting fish. Indep Energy Mag 4(8):72–76
Gleick P (1986) Methods for evaluating the regional hydrologic impacts of global climatic changes. J Hydrol 88:97–116
Gleick P (1987) The development and testing of a water balance model for climate impact assessment: modeling the Sacramento Basin. Water Res R 23(6): 1049–1061
Gleick P (1990) Global climatic changes: a summary of regional hydrological impacts. Civ Engng Pract 5(1):53–68
Harbor J (1994) A practical method for estimating the impact of land use change on surface runoff, groundwater recharge, and wetland hydrology. JAPA 20(1):95–108
Henratty MP, Stefan HG (1998) Simulating climate change effects in a Minnesota agricultural watershed. J Environ Qual 27:1524–1532
Idso SB, Brazel AJ (1984) Rising atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations may increase streamflow. Nature 312:51–53
Jacoby HD (1990) Water quality. In: Waggoner PE (ed) Climate change and U.S. water resources. Wiley, New York, pp 307–328
Johnson Division UOP Inc. (1975) Groundwater and wells. Johnson Division, UOP Inc., Saint Paul
Karl TR, Knight RW, Easterling DR, Quayle RQ (1996) Indices of climate change for the United States. Bull Am Meteorol Soc 77:279–292
Krysanova V, Muller-Wohlfeil D, Becker A (1998) Development and test of a spatially distributed hydrologicaVwater quality model for mesoscale watersheds. Ecol Model 106:261–289
Mather JR (1981) Using computed stream flow in watershed analysis. Water Resour Bull 17(3):474–482
McClintock KA, Harbor JM, Wilson TP (1995) Assessing the hydrological impact of land use change in wetland watersheds: a case study from northern Ohio, USA. In: McGregor DFM, Thompson DA (eds) Geomorphology and Land Management in a Changing Environment. Wiley, New York, pp 107–119
Minner M, Harbor J, Rappold S, Michael-Butler P (1998) Cost apportionment of a storm-water management system. Appl Geogr Stud 2(4):247–260
Mitsch W, Gosselink J (1993) Wetlands. Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York
Mostaghimi S, Mitchell JK (1982) Peak runoff model comparison on central Illinois watersheds. Water Resour Bull 18:9–18
Nash LL, Gleick PH (1991) Sensitivity of streamflow in the Colorado Basin to climatic changes. J Hydrol 125:221–241
National Research Council (1999) Global environmental change: research pathways for the next decade. National Academy Press, Washington, DC
Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (1996) Ohio water resource inventory, executive summary: summary, conclusions, and recommendations. Division of Surface Water and Monitoring Assessment Section, Columbus, Ohio
Olejnik J, Kedziora A (1991) A model for heat and water balance estimation and its application to land use and climate variation. Earth Surf Process Landforms 16:601–617
Pitt R, Bozeman M (1980) Water quality and biological effects of urban runoff in Coyote Creek. EPA-600/2-80-104. US Environmental Protection Agency, Cincinnati
Rind, D (1988) The doubled C02 climate and the sensitivity of the hydrologic cycle. J Geophys Res 93:5385–5412
Sale MJ, Snider SH, Bao Y-S, Van Dyke J (1997) Cost of removing Edwards Dam on the Kennebec River, Maine. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC
Schaake JC (1990) From climate to flow. In: Waggoner PE (ed) Climate Change and U.S. Water Resources. Wiley, New York, pp 177–206
Shriner DS, Street RB, Ball R, D’Amours D, Duncon K, Kaiser D, Maarouf A, Mortsch L, Mulholland P, Neilson R, Patz JA, Scheraga JD, Titus JG, Vaughan H, Welz M (1998) North America. In: Watson RT, Zinyowera MC, Moss RH (eds) The regional impacts of climate change: an assessment of vulnerability. Special report of International Panel on Climate Change, working group II. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK
Spencer EW (1965) Geology, a survey of earth science. Crowell, New York
Srinivasan R, Arnold JG (1994) Integration of a basin-scale water quality model with GIS. Water Resourc Bull 30(3):453–462
Thompson SA (1992) Simulation of climate change impacts on water balances in the central United States. Phys Geogr 13(1):31–52
Thomthwaite CW, Mather JR (1955) The water balance. Publications in climatology, vol VIII, no 1. Elmer, New Jersey
Tong STY (1990) The hydrologic effects of urban land use: a case study of the Little Miami River Basin. Landscape Urban Plann 19:99–105
United States Department of Agriculture Soil Conservation Service (1986) Urban hydrology for small watersheds. Technical release 55, 2nd edn. NTIS PB87-101580. Springfield, Va
United States Environmental Protection Agency (1998) Climate Change and Ohio. Office of Policy, EPA-236-F-98-007s
Wilmott CJ (1977) WATBUG: A Fortran IV algorithm for calculating the climatic water budget. C.W. Thornthwaite Associates Laboratory for Climatology, Publications in Climatology, vol 30, no. 2. Elmer, New Jersey
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
We would like to thank J. Harbor of Purdue University for the use of the L-THIA model and S. A. Thompson of Millersville University for the Thomthwaite water-balance model. We also thank R. Clark and B. Lykins of the National Risk Management Research Laboratory of the U.S. Enrironmental Protection Agency for their helpful assistance.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Liu, A.J., Tong, S.T. & Goodrich, J.A. Land use as a mitigation strategy for the water-quality impacts of global warming: a scenario analysis on two watersheds in the Ohio River Basin. Environmental Engineering and Policy 2, 65–76 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03500900
Received:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03500900