Efficient approach for impact analysis of land cover changes on hydrological extremes by means of a lumped conceptual model

Abstract

Study region: Belgium, Flanders, Grote Nete and Zuunbeek catchments. Study focus: The focus of this study is the development and subsequent application of a computationally-efficient framework for parsimonious hydrological models to simulate impact of land cover changes. The framework was applied to the NAM conceptual model, considering the disaggregation approach by Tran et al. (2018), and urban development scenarios for the study region for 2050. New hydrological insights for the region: Considering the urban development scenarios for 2050, an intensification of the hydrological extremes was found. On average, 10 % increase in urbanization causes an increase in river peak flows of about 3 %. Peak-flow changes by 2050 vary between +2 % to +14 % for the Grote Nete catchment, and between -2 % to +8 % for the Zuunbeek catchment. Low-flow changes vary in the range [-5 %, -1 %] and [-33 %, 10 %] for the Grote Nete and Zuunbeek catchments, respectively. Keywords: Land cover changes, Conceptual hydrological modelling, Hydrological extremes, Impact analysis