Title
Land use can offset climate change induced increases in erosion in Mediterranean watersheds
Date Issued
01 August 2016
Access level
metadata only access
Resource Type
journal article
Author(s)
Imperial College
Publisher(s)
Elsevier B.V.
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to assess the impacts of projected climate change on a Mediterranean catchment, and to analyze the effects of a suite of representative land use practices as an adaptation tool to reduce climate change-driven erosion and hydrologic extremes. Relevant climatic variables from the ERA-Interim global atmospheric reanalysis of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) were downscaled for the study area, and perturbed with the anomalies of 23 global circulation models for three emission scenarios (B1, A1B and A2). Both a projected daily rainfall time series for the period 2010-2100, and a single precipitation event with a one-hundred year return period were used to assess the impact of climate change. The downscaled data were fed into a distributed hydro-sedimentary model (TETIS) with five land use configurations representative of future demographic tendencies, geographical characteristics and land management policies (e.g. European Union CAP). The projected changes showed a general decrease in runoff and sediment production by the end of the century regardless of land use configuration. Sediment production showed a positive relationship with an increase in agricultural land and a decrease in natural land under present day agricultural management. According to our simulations, some conservation practices in agriculture can effectively reduce net erosion while maintaining agricultural production. As such, they can play a critical role as an adaptation tool to reduce climate change impacts in the 21st century.
Start page
244
End page
255
Volume
143
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Oceanografía, Hidrología, Recursos hídricos
Subjects
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-84964370214
Source
Catena
ISSN of the container
03418162
Sponsor(s)
This study was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through the research projects CLARIES (ref. CGL2011-29176 ) and PALEOMED ( CGL2014-58127-C3-1-R ). Meteorological data was provided by the Spanish Meteorological Agency (AEMET).
Sources of information:
Directorio de Producción Científica
Scopus