Document Type
Article
Publication Date
10-25-2014
Keywords
Brahmaputra, freshwater availability, SWAT, streamflow, climate change, land use change
Abstract
Study Region: Brahmaputra River basin in South Asia.
Study Focus: The Soil and Water Assessment Tool was used to evaluate sensitivities and patterns in freshwater availability due to projected climate and land use changes in the Brahmaputra basin. The daily observed discharge at Bahadurabad station in Bangladesh was used to calibrate and validate the model and analyze uncertainties with a sequential uncertainty fitting algorithm. The sensitivities and impacts of projected climate and land use changes on basin hydrological components were simulated for the A1B and A2 scenarios and analyzed relative to a baseline scenario of 1988–2004.
New hydrological insights for the region: Basin average annual ET was found to be sensitive to changes in CO2 concentration and temperature, while total water yield, streamflow, and groundwater recharge were sensitive to changes in precipitation. The basin hydrological components were predicted to increase with seasonal variability in response to climate and land use change scenarios. Strong increasing trends were predicted for total water yield, streamflow, and groundwater recharge, indicating exacerbation of flooding potential during August–October, but strong decreasing trends were predicted, indicating exacerbation of drought potential during May–July of the 21st century. The model has potential to facilitate strategic decision making through scenario generation integrating climate change adaptation and hazard mitigation policies to ensure optimized allocation of water resources under a variable and changing climate.
Publication Title
Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies
Volume
3
First Page
285
Last Page
311
Pages
26
Type
text
Format
application/pdf
Language
en
DOI of Published Version
10.1016/j.ejrh.2014.09.003
Publisher
Elsevier
Rights
Copyright © 2016 Elsevier
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Pervez, M. S. and Henebry, G. M., "Assessing the Impacts of Climate and Land Use and Land Cover Change on the Freshwater Availability in the Brahmaputra River Basin" (2014). Natural Resource Management Faculty Publications. 7.
https://openprairie.sdstate.edu/nrm_pubs/7
Comments
This article was originally published in Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies, Volume 3, March 2015; doi:10.1016/j.ejrh.2014.09.003. Posted with permission.