Assessing the Impacts of Climate Change on the Quantity and Quality of Agricultural Runoff (Case Study: Golgol River Basin)

Abstract

The effects of climate change and global warming have become increasingly evident in recent years. Changes in climate may impact water availability, water needs for agriculture and agricultural runoff. The Golgol River Basin has been investigated to examine the effect of climate change. HadCM3 model output under the A2 emission scenario during the two periods of 2046–2065 and 2080–2099 is used to predict temperature and precipitation amount under climate change impact, while the LARS‐WG model is used for downscaling. SWAT was applied to simulate runoff, nitrate and organic nitrogen. The SWAT‐CUP and SUFI‐2 methods were used for calibration. Introducing downscaled results of AOGCM models into the hydrological model and assuming similar regional conditions including fertilizer and land use, the changes in runoff and pollutants in the future were also simulated. It was observed that during 2046–2065, the average monthly runoff, nitrate and organic nitrogen loads would decrease by 27, 18 and 13.5%. The 2080–2099 period when compared to the present shows that the average monthly runoff, nitrate and organic nitrogen loads would decrease by 45, 33 and 35%. So according to runoff quality degradation, management solutions must be found to reduce pollutants. Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Network-Based Topological Exploration of the Impact of Pollution Sources on Surface Water Bodies

“…Furthermore, these extreme events may accelerate the sedimentation process in water bodies, leading to an increase in Biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5), Chemical oxygen demand (COD Cr ), Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and other pollutants. Due to dissolution processes, these pollutants can affect water quality and facilitate the spread of waterborne diseases (Yang et al, 2019), (Nguyen et al, 2017), (Mehdi et al, 2018), (Moshtaghi et al, 2018). Therefore, efficient design for water management must be designed efficiently to address the impacts of climate change on water quality parameters, which requires sectoral and institutional cooperation across the board (Whitehead et al, 2009).…”

Climate Change Impacts on Water Quality of Water Bodies-A Review

“…The magnitude of the risks depends on the duration of the event, nature of the pollutants induced into water, water quality parameters affected, extent (spreading level) of the impacts on the aquatic organisms, people, wildlife and the life span of the pollutant in water. One study showed that increased chlorophyll-a, Turbidity, Color, TSS and TDS support the risk to water quality but extreme heat, heavy rainfall and flood, increased global temperature, drought are found more effective climate events affecting the water quality of a given water body [5,7,8,9,11,12]. Table 4 lists the risks that are classified on the basis of extent loss/in general level of predominance.…”

“…Heavy rainfall and flood, hurricane, wildfires, drought cyclones and super storms accelerate the sedimentation processes in rivers making it a storage for dissolved organic carbon (DOC), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), natural organic matter (NOM) and other pollutants affecting the water through dissolution processes, which pose difficulties in drinking water treatment resulting in waterborne diseases. However, such extreme climate change events can cause more nutrient loading in water which when consumed without proper treatment can result into diseases like cancer [5,7,8,9,11,12]. E. coli, Coliform and pathogenic bacteria may also cause the human health in terms of epidemic and endemic diseases [15,10].…”

“…Wang et al [11] found that increase stream discharge (Q), total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorous (TP) also is increased with the increase in global temperature. Other parameters like average monthly runoff, NO 3 and organic nitrogen loads are decreased by 27, 18 and 13.5% in Golgol River (Iran) waters due to climate change [12]. Apart from water quality impairment, the impacts of climate change influence both physical damage of water structures, disease eruptions, severe pollutions, increase in water hardness, and increased growth of viruses, thereby, causing the chronic diseases like hepatitis, typhoid etc [13,14,15,4].…”