Partitioning the effects of pine plantations and climate variability on runoff from a large catchment in southeastern Australia

Abstract

Effects of substantial increase in area of pine plantations from 1960 to 2000 on runoff in a large catchment in southeastern Australia are quantified. Reliable land use maps were prepared for 1960–1979, 1980–1989, and 1990–2000 conditions from various data sources. Land use changes in the subcatchments have occurred at varying rates (16 to 28%) with pines replacing pasture and native woody vegetation. On the basis of long‐term trends in rainfall‐runoff relationships, flow duration curves, and history of land use changes, it is shown that there is strong evidence of reduction in runoff over a wide range. Modeling methodology using a lumped catchment‐scale rainfall‐runoff model (SMAR) and landscape‐scale ecohydrological models (CLASS U3M‐1D, CLASS PGM, and 3PG+) was implemented in a catchment framework to partition the effects of land use change and climate variability during 1960–2000. Runoff reductions from land use change in the range 22–52 mm/yr are estimated for different subcatchments. Annual yield impact per 10% of the catchment forested (AYI/10%) from catchment‐scale modeling is estimated to vary between 14.3 to 19.2 mm/yr for the subcatchments. AYI/10% from landscape‐scale modeling is estimated to vary between 12.8 to 21.3 mm/yr.

Quantifying the effects of climate change and human activities on runoff in the water source area of Beijing, China

“…Hence, it is important to detect and separate the effects of climate change and human activities and to determine the dominant factors which lead to runoff changes. Although several studies have recently been conducted on this topic (Lane et al 2005, Tuteja et al 2007, Li et al 2007, Wang et al 2009, Wei and Zhang, 2010, Zeng et al 2013, separating the effects of climate change and human activities in hydrology is still a challenge, and the impacts of the two factors on the water cycle still need further investigation at the local scale (Wang et al 2012).…”

The effects of cumulative forest disturbance on streamflow in a large watershed in the central interior of British Columbia, Canada

“…Numerous studies on the hydrological impacts of logging have been conducted on small watersheds (less than 100 km 2 ), using the paired-watershed experimental approach, and those studies have shown that forest harvesting can significantly increase annual mean and peak flows, and change dry season low flow (Stednick, 1996;Neary et al, 2003;Bruijnzeel, 2004;Moore and Wondzell, 2005). However, the research on impacts of forest disturbance on hydrology in large watersheds (>1000 km 2 ) is limited (Wei and Zhang, 2010a;Vose et al, 2011), and the results are inconsistent (Ring and Fisher, 1985;Buttle and Metcalfe, 2000;Costa et al, 2003;Tuteja et al, 2007;Wei and Zhang, 2010b). In spite of limited research, the topic of the forest disturbance-hydrology relationship in large watersheds has received growing attention, mainly because of the increasing need to support natural resources planning and management at large spatial scales.…”

“…The greatest challenge is how to separate their relative contributions to hydrology (Zhang et al, 2008;Wang et al, 2009;Zheng et al, 2009;Wei and Zhang, 2010b). Physically-based hydrological modeling is commonly used to assess the relative effects of climate variability and forest change on hydrology (Tuteja et al, 2007;Juckem et al, 2008;Zégre et al, 2010;Zhao et al, 2010). However, this modeling approach is only suitable for the watersheds that are well monitored with extensive, longterm data available on vegetation, soil, topography, land use, hydrology and climate (Wei and Zhang, 2010a, b).…”

Impacts of forest changes on hydrology: a case study of large watersheds in the upper reaches of Minjiang River watershed in China

“…However, such an experimental approach is not suitable for large watersheds simply because of the difficulty in locating a comparable control watershed for an impacted watershed. In order to overcome this methodological challenge, various approaches have been explored, including hydrological modeling (Tuteja et al, 2007), statistical analysis (Wei and Zhang, 2010;Zhao et al, 2010), sensitivity tests (Milly and Dunne, 2002) and trend analysis (Wilcox and Huang, 2010).…”

“…However, the majority of these conclusions have been based on small watersheds with much less attention given to the large watersheds (Wilk et al, 2001;Costa et al, 2003;Sun et al, 2005;Tuteja et al, 2007;Lin and Wei, 2008). In the past few decades, large watershed studies have been receiving growing attention because many environmental issues have cumulative effects and operate on large spatial scales.…”