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Comment on “Climate and agricultural land use change impacts on streamflow in the upper midwestern United States” by Satish C. Gupta et al.
Author(s) -
Schilling Keith E.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
water resources research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.863
H-Index - 217
eISSN - 1944-7973
pISSN - 0043-1397
DOI - 10.1002/2015wr018482
Subject(s) - streamflow , precipitation , environmental science , land cover , agriculture , climate change , agricultural productivity , land use , hydrology (agriculture) , geography , drainage basin , ecology , geology , meteorology , archaeology , cartography , geotechnical engineering , biology
Increasing precipitation and land use/land cover (LU/LC) change have contributed to increasing streamflow and base flow in many Midwestern rivers but the relative importance of causal factors is open to debate. The dominant LULC change in the agricultural Midwest is the emergence of soybean production that occurred in the mid‐ to late‐20th Century that replaced many sod‐based rotations and increased total row crop area devoted to annual maize and soybean crops. Increasing precipitation may be a more important factor for increasing total discharge whereas LULC changes contributed more to base flow changes.