Journal of Water and Climate Change (Apr 2024)
Response of climate change and land use land cover change on catchment-scale water balance components: a multi-site calibration approach
Abstract
The present study focused on evaluating the separate and combined response of land use land cover and climate change (CC) on future water balance components of a Subarnarekha River basin, spanning between the latitudes 21°33′N–23°18′N and longitudes 85°11′E–87°23′E, situated in the eastern India. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool is used for single-site calibration and multi-site calibration (MSC) of the model to characterize the future water balance components of the basin using the Cellular Automata-Markov model and climate projections under two representative concentration pathway (RCP) scenarios (4.5 and 8.5). The findings indicate that the model parameters obtained through MSC better represent spatial heterogeneity, making it the preferred calibration approach for model simulations. In the middle region of the basin, future annual water yield, groundwater recharge (GWR), and streamflow showed a reduction, respectively, by 46–47%, 29–30%, and 13–15%, while evapotranspiration showed an increase by 5–7% following projected CC under both RCP scenarios. The findings are relevant for policy-makers to mitigate the adverse effects of reduced GWR for sustainable water resources management. Future research may integrate reservoir operation frameworks to effectively address the water management issues of the basin. HIGHLIGHTS Single-site and multi-site calibrations of the hydrological model are compared.; A multi-site calibration approach is used to assess the response of land use land cover (LU/LC) and climate change (CC) on water balance components using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool model.; Groundwater recharge (GWR) reduced rapidly under LU/LC and CC scenarios.; CC governs the streamflow and water yield components.; CC and LU/LC change contribute equally to GWR and evapotranspiration.;
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