Quantifying the Effect of Land Use Change and Climate Variability on Green Water Resources in the Xihe River Basin, Northeast China

Leting Lyu, Xiaorui Wang, Caizhi Sun, Tiantian Ren and Defeng Zheng
Additional contact information
Leting Lyu: College of Urban and Environment, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian 116029, China
Xiaorui Wang: College of Urban and Environment, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian 116029, China
Caizhi Sun: College of Urban and Environment, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian 116029, China
Tiantian Ren: College of Urban and Environment, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian 116029, China
Defeng Zheng: College of Urban and Environment, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian 116029, China

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 2, 1-14

Abstract: Based on a land use interpretation and distributed hydrological model, soil and water assessment tool (SWAT), this study simulated the hydrological cycle in Xihe River Basin in northern China. In addition, the influence of climate variability and land use change on green water resources in the basin from 1995 to 2015 was analyzed. The results show that (1) The E NS (Nash-Sutcliffe model efficiency coefficient) and R 2 (coefficient of determination) were 0.94 and 0.89, respectively, in the calibration period, and 0.89 and 0.88, respectively, in the validation period. These indicate high simulation accuracy; (2) Changes in green water flow and green water storage due to climate variability accounted for increases of 2.07 mm/a and 1.28 mm/a, respectively. The relative change rates were 0.49% and 0.9%, respectively, and the green water coefficient decreased by 1%; (3) Changes in green water flow and green water storage due to land use change accounted for increases of 69.15 mm and 48.82 mm, respectively. The relative change rates were 16.4% and 37.2%, respectively, and the green water coefficient increased by 10%; (4) Affected by both climate variability and land use change, green water resources increased by 121.3 mm and the green water coefficient increased by 9% in the Xihe River Basin. It is noteworthy that the influence of land use change was greater than that of climate variability.

Keywords: climate variability; land use; green water resources; Xihe River Basin (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/2/338/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/2/338/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:2:p:338-:d:196747

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().