Future Water Budgets and Water Supply Stress under Climate Change and Urbanization in the Upper Neuse River Basin, North Carolina, USA | Science Publications

American Journal of Environmental Sciences

Steven George McNulty¹  Jennifer Anne Moore Myers¹  Michelle Tong Sun¹  Chong Liu¹  Ge Sun¹ 

关键词: Climate Change;    Hydrologic Modeling;    Urbanization;    Water Yield;    Water Supply;   

DOI  :  10.3844/ajessp.2015.175.185

学科分类：环境科学（综合）

来源: Science Publications

【 摘 要 】

Urbanization and climate change are the two major threats towatersheds and the environment in the United States. It is imperative tounderstand the sensitivity of hydrologic responses to climate and urbanizationacross different physiographic regions in order to formulate sound watershedmanagement strategies and policies. This study evaluated a watershed waterbalance model, Water Supply Stress Index (WaSSI), with measured historicstreamflow data for the Upper Neuse River basin in central North Carolina. Auser-friendly web version of the WaSSI model was applied to examine how climatechange and potential urbanization over the next 50 years may affect streamflow(or water yield) of this river basin and water supply stress (waterdemand/water supply). Our simulation study suggested that urbanization couldincrease water yield (8%), while climate change could reduce (30%) water yielddepending on future changes in precipitation and warming potential in the studybasin. Climate change is likely to overwhelm the basin-wide impacts ofurbanization in terms of its influences on water supply stress, buturbanization may aggravate the environmental problems by increasing stormflow andwater quality degradation under a changing climate. Future climatic changemodels should reduce the uncertainty of climate projection in precipitation, amajor control on watershed hydrology.

【 授权许可】

Unknown