Water security assessment of current and future scenarios through an integrated modeling framework in the Neshanic River Watershed
Authored by Subhasis Giri, Nazia N Arbab, Richard G Lathrop
Date Published: 2018
DOI: 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2018.05.046
Sponsors:
No sponsors listed
Platforms:
Python
Model Documentation:
Other Narrative
Mathematical description
Model Code URLs:
Model code not found
Abstract
Water security assessment based on the concept of blue versus green
water is becoming widely accepted globally. Blue water is the
combination of surface runoff and deep aquifer recharge while green
water is the summation of evapotranspiration and soil water content
(i.e. mediated by plants). Due to the tight coupling between land use
and the partitioning of blue and green water within a watershed, an
integrated geospatial modeling framework that links land use and
watershed hydrological processes is needed to predict the consequences
of future land use change on blue versus green water security. By
loosely coupling an agent based probabilistic land use change model with
a hydrologic model, we investigated the consequences of present trends
of urban growth to identify potential future hotspots of hydrological
change across a watershed in central New Jersey undergoing sub
urbanization. The agent based probabilistic model, working at the scale
of land ownership parcels, predicted that future urban development would
be the result of forest, rather than farm land conversion. Using
existing zoning maps, the housing unit density and human population of
the urban growth areas was estimated. A consequence of the loss of
forest land and increasing impervious surface leading was higher blue
water but lower green water. While no severe blue water scarcity was
observed, an increasing green water scarcity was found in some study
area sub-basins. Such information will aid watershed managers' and
policymakers' effort in sustainably managing water resources under
changing land use and climate.
Tags
Agent-based model
Land-use change
Land-use
calibration
Validation
zoning
water scarcity
Challenges
Cellular-automata
Area
Green
Logistic-regression
District
Water security
Water withdrawal
Blue water
Green
water flow
Green water storage
Soil and water assessment tool
Agent
based modeling
Hydrological hotspot
Blue