Hydrological drought is assessed through river ow, which depends on river runoff and water withdrawal. This study proposed a framework to project future hydrological droughts considering agricultural water withdrawal (AWW) for shared socioeconomic pathway (SSP) scenarios. The relationship between AWW and potential evapotranspiration (PET) was determined using a deep belief network (DBN) model and then applied to estimate future AWW using projections of the twelve global climate models (GCMs). 12 GCMs were bias-corrected using the quantile mapping method, climate variables were generated, and river ow was estimated using the soil and water assessment tool (SWAT) model. The standardized runoff index (SRI) was used to project the changes in hydrological drought characteristics. The results revealed a higher occurrence of severe droughts in the future. Droughts would be more frequent in the near future than in the far future (2061-2100) and more severe when AWW is considered. Droughts would also be more severe for SSP5-8.5 than for SSP2-4.5. The study revealed that the increased PET due to rising temperatures is the primary cause of the increased drought frequency and severity. The AWW will accelerate the drought severities in the future in the Yeongsan River basin.
ProcedureThis study consists of a total of six steps. The rst step was to perform bias correction of the simulations of the twelve GCMs using the quantile mapping method. The performance of bias correction was evaluated using several statistical performance indices. The second step was to formulate the SWAT model for the Yeongsan River basin using historical meteorological observation data, AWW, and discharges from the wastewater treatment facility. The SWAT parameters were calibrated using SWAT-CUP (Calibration and Uncertainty Procedure; Abbaspour et al., 2007) based on observed runoff levels at Geukrakgyo (bridge), as shown in Figure 1. The third step was to estimate the future AWW outcomes using GCMs based on the derived relationship between PET and AWW for the observation period. The PET was calculated using Thornthwaite's (1948) method, and the relationship was quanti ed using the DBN. The fourth step estimated the river ow for the twelve GCMs and two SSP scenarios. The fth step calculated the SRI and analyzed the future drought characteristics. The analysis of the future period was divided into the near future (NF) (2021-2060) and the far future (FF) (2061-2100). In the last, uncertainty analysis was performed using REA (Reliability ensemble average) for the runoff and drought index considering with or without AWW.
Study area and datasetsThe basin area of the Yeongsan River is 3,371.4 km², and the average annual temperature and rainfall amount are 14.0°C and 1,293 mm, respectively. Land use includes forest (45.4%), agriculture (35.5%), urban areas (7.3%), grasslands (5.2%), water bodies (3.4%), bare lands (1.8%), and wetlands (1.4%). The Yeongsan River basin, located in the southwestern region of Korea, is known as a large-scale agricultural area, ...