Small farm dams: impact on river flows and sustainability in a context of climate change

Habets, Florence; Philippe, Elodie; Martin, E.; David, Cédric H.; Leseur, F.

doi:10.5194/hessd-10-14391-2013

Cited by 9 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…The modelling results of the present study support the assumption of Habets et al (2014) and Meigh (1995) of a notable infl uence of farm dams in dry years. Overestimation of runoff during the wet season was reduced after the implementation of the farm dam module, but was still present.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 70%

“…A number of case studies have shown that smaller farm dams can affect the fl ow pattern of a basin. Habets et al (2014) revealed that accumulated water for irrigation is not available for runoff processes and reported a decrease in the outfl ow in presence of farm dams. Studies in South Africa confi rmed the infl uence of farm dams on fl ow patterns Mantel et al, 2010), particularly aff ecting the base fl ow.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Semi-arid catchments under change: Adapted hydrological models to simulate the influence of climate change and human activities on rainfall-runoff processes in southern Africa

Meinhardt¹,

Fleischer²,

Fink³

et al. 2018

Biodivers. Ecol.

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Semi-arid catchments under change: Adapted hydrological models to simulate the influence of climate change and human activities on rainfall-runoff processes in southern Africa. In: Climate change and adaptive land management in southern Africa -assessments, changes, challenges, and solutions (ed. by Water resources 114C A Abstract: A comprehensive river basin assessment is key to integrated land and water resources management (ILWRM), which is based on an integrated system analysis to identify interacting hydrological processes that are driven by landscape features and socioeconomic development. Software toolsets like RBIS (River Basin Information System), GRASS-HRU, and the hydrological modelling system JAMS/J2000 were used and further developed for basin assessments and modelling of hydrological process dynamics and other environmental processes in selected catchments in southern Africa. These are the Gaborone Dam catchment (Botswana, South Africa), the Verlorenvlei catchment (South Africa), and the Luanginga catchment (Angola, Zambia). All of these catchments respond very sensitively to changes in climate and land management, revealing additional issues like a strong decline of infl ow (Gaborone Dam) or a decline of usable groundwater resources (Verlorenvlei). Further, extensive wetland areas in the Upper Zambezi (Luanginga) respond strongly to changes in hydroclimatic conditions and land management. In this study, newly developed and improved simulation components for representing processes with a strong local impact on the hydrological conditions such as fl oodplain inundation, irrigation, small farm dams, and contour bank farming were used to more precisely simulate the hydrology of the respective basins. After successful model validation and an improved understanding of catchment dynamics, the models were used as a platform for diff erent land or climate change analysis. Taking the RCP 8.5 scenario based on EC-Earth and ECHAM, downscaled by REMO, into account, the Luanginga catchment showed a strong decrease in runoff generation, inundation extent, and groundwater recharge. For the Kruismannsrivier, a sub-catchment of the Verlorenvlei, the relation between contour farming and related eff ects on surface/subsurface runoff processes and related parameters were revealed through modelling. These fi ndings could also be projected to the Gaborone Dam catchment, in which the infl uence of small farm dams spread over the catchment could be shown by modelling.Resumo: Uma avaliação abrangente da bacia hidrográfi ca é essencial para a gestão integrada dos recursos terrestres e hí-dricos (ILWRM), a qual é baseada numa análise integrada do sistema para identifi car processos hidrológicos em interacção que são impulsionados pelas características da paisagem e o desenvolvimento socioeconómico. Ferramentas de software, tais como RBIS (River Basin Information System), GRASS-HRU e o sistema de modelação hidrológica JAMS/J2000,foram utilizadas e desenvolvidas para avaliações de bacias e modelação de dinâmicas de processo...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 70%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Semi-arid catchments under change: Adapted hydrological models to simulate the influence of climate change and human activities on rainfall-runoff processes in southern Africa

Meinhardt¹,

Fleischer²,

Fink³

et al. 2018

Biodivers. Ecol.

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“…Each bar corresponds to a different catchment. The estimations are from the following references: a: Gutteridge-Haskins-Davey (1987), b: Ockenden and Kotwicki (1982), c: Girard (1973), d: Cresswell (1991), e: Teoh (2003), f: Habets et al (2014), and g: Kennon (1966). Figure 1 shows that the impacts on annual flows are not constant from year to year but tend to be lower during the wet years and two times greater than the median impact 5 in the driest years.…”

Section: Evidence Of the Impacts Of Small Reservoirs On Hydrologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Rather, a global estimation of reservoirs and their characteristics may be approximated from simple rules of spatial extrapolation (cf. Habets et al (2014)). For instance, to estimate the inflow into the equivalent reservoir, it is necessary to determine the contributive catchment.…”

Section: Aggregate Representationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For instance, to estimate the inflow into the equivalent reservoir, it is necessary to determine the contributive catchment. It can be a fraction of the catchment area (Tarboton and Schulze, 1991;Hughes and Mantel, 2010) that can be estimated from the sum of the drainage area of all reservoirs or depending on the cumulative reservoir area (Habets et al, 2014).…”

Section: Aggregate Representationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The cumulative impacts of small reservoirs on hydrology: A review

Habets

Molénat

Carluer

et al. 2018

Science of The Total Environment

Self Cite

116

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The number of small reservoirs has increased due to their reduced cost, the availability of many favourable locations, and their easy access due to proximity. The cumulative impacts of such small reservoirs are not easy to estimate, even when solely considering hydrology, which is partially due to the difficulty in collecting data on the functioning of such reservoirs. However, there is evidence indicating that the cumulative impacts of such reservoirs are significant. The aim of this article is to present a review of the studies that address the cumulative impacts of small reservoirs on hydrology, focusing on the methodology and on the way in which these impacts are assessed. Most of the studies addressing the hydrological cumulative impacts focused on the annual stream discharge, with decreases ranging from 0.2% to 36% with a mean value of 13.4% ± 8% over approximately 30 references. However, it is shown that similar densities of small reservoirs can lead to different impacts on stream discharge in different regions. This result is probably due to the hydro-climatic conditions and makes defining simple indicators to provide a first guess of the cumulative impacts difficult. The impacts also vary in time, with a more intense reduction in the river discharge during the dry years than during the wet years. This finding is certainly an important point to take into consideration in the context of climate change. Two methods are mostly used to estimate cumulative impacts: i) exclusively data-based methods and ii) models. The assumptions, interests and shortcomings of these methods are presented. Scientific tracks are proposed to address the four main shortcomings, namely the estimation of the associated uncertainties, the lack of knowledge on reservoir characteristics and water abstraction and the accuracy of the impact indicators.

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Temporary streams in temperate zones: recognizing, monitoring and restoring transitional aquatic‐terrestrial ecosystems

et al. 2017

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Temporary streams are defined by periodic flow cessation, and may experience partial or complete loss of surface water. The ecology and hydrology of these transitional aquatic-terrestrial ecosystems have received unprecedented attention in recent years. Research has focussed on the arid, semi-arid, and Mediterranean regions in which temporary systems are the dominant stream type, and those in cooler, wetter temperate regions with an oceanic climate influence are also receiving increasing attention. These oceanic systems take diverse forms, including meandering alluvial plain rivers, 'winterbourne' chalk streams, and peatland gullies. Temporary streams provide ecosystem services and support a diverse biota that includes rare and endemic specialists. We examine this biota and illustrate that temporary stream diversity can be higher than in comparable perennial systems, in particular when differences among sites and times are considered; these diversity patterns can be related to transitions between lotic, lentic, and terrestrial instream conditions. Human impacts on temperate-zone temporary streams are ubiquitous, and result from water-resource and land-use-related stressors, which interact in a changing climate to alter natural flow regimes. These impacts may remain uncharacterized due to inadequate protection of small temporary streams by current legislation, and hydrological and biological monitoring programs therefore require expansion to better represent temporary systems. Novel, temporary-stream-specific biomonitors and multi-metric indices require development, to integrate characterization of ecological quality during lotic, lentic, and terrestrial phases. In addition, projects to restore flow regimes, habitats, and communities may be required to improve the ecological quality of temporary streams.

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Small farm dams: impact on river flows and sustainability in a context of climate change

Cited by 9 publications

References 31 publications

Semi-arid catchments under change: Adapted hydrological models to simulate the influence of climate change and human activities on rainfall-runoff processes in southern Africa

Semi-arid catchments under change: Adapted hydrological models to simulate the influence of climate change and human activities on rainfall-runoff processes in southern Africa

The cumulative impacts of small reservoirs on hydrology: A review

Temporary streams in temperate zones: recognizing, monitoring and restoring transitional aquatic‐terrestrial ecosystems

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