Premium
The Influence of Forest Regrowth on the Stream Discharge in the North Carolina Piedmont Watersheds
Author(s) -
Kim Yuri,
Band Lawrence E.,
Song Conghe
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
jawra journal of the american water resources association
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.957
H-Index - 105
eISSN - 1752-1688
pISSN - 1093-474X
DOI - 10.1111/jawr.12115
Subject(s) - surface runoff , environmental science , swat model , hydrology (agriculture) , watershed , soil and water assessment tool , precipitation , land use , land cover , vegetation (pathology) , land use, land use change and forestry , discharge , streamflow , drainage basin , geography , ecology , geology , medicine , geotechnical engineering , cartography , pathology , machine learning , meteorology , computer science , biology
Abstract This study focuses on the relationships of watershed runoff with historical land use/land cover ( LULC ) and climate trends. Over the 20th Century, LULC in the Southeast United States, particularly the N orth C arolina P iedmont, has evolved from an agriculture dominated to an extensively forested landscape with more recent localized urbanization. The regrowth of forest has an important influence on the hydrology of the region as it enhances ecosystem interaction with recent climate change. During 1920‐2009, the amount of precipitation in some parts of the N orth C arolina P iedmont forest regrowth area showed increasing trends without corresponding increments in runoff. We employed the Soil and Water Assessment Tool ( SWAT ) to backcast long‐term hydrologic behavior of watersheds in N orth C arolina with different LULC conditions: (1) LULC conversion from agricultural to forested area and (2) long‐term stable forested area. Comparing U.S. Geological Survey ‐measured stream discharge with SWAT ‐simulated stream discharge under the assumption of constant 2006 LULC , we found significant stream discharge underprediction by SWAT in two LULC conversion watersheds during the early simulation period (1920s) with differences gradually decreasing by the mid‐1970s. This model bias suggests that forest regrowth on abandoned agricultural land was a key factor contributing to mitigate the impact of increased precipitation on runoff due to increasing water consumption driven by changes in vegetation.