Sensitivity of Riparian Buffer Designs to Climate Change—Nutrient and Sediment Loading to Streams: A Case Study in the Albemarle-Pamlico River Basins (USA) Using HAWQS

Santosh R. Ghimire, Joel Corona, Rajbir Parmar, Gouri Mahadwar, Raghavan Srinivasan, Katie Mendoza and John M. Johnston
Additional contact information
Santosh R. Ghimire: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Research and Development, Athens, GA 30605, USA
Rajbir Parmar: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Research and Development, Athens, GA 30605, USA
Gouri Mahadwar: Former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ORISE Participant, Oak Ridge, TN 37831-0117, USA
Raghavan Srinivasan: Blackland Research and Extension Center and Department of Ecology and Conservation Biology, Texas A&M Agrilife Research and Texas A&M University, Temple, TX 76502, USA
Katie Mendoza: Blackland Research and Extension Center and Department of Ecology and Conservation Biology, Texas A&M Agrilife Research and Texas A&M University, Temple, TX 76502, USA
John M. Johnston: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Research and Development, Athens, GA 30605, USA

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 22, 1-28

Abstract: Riparian buffer zones (RBZs) provide multiple benefits to watershed ecosystems. We aimed to conduct an extensive sensitivity analysis of the RBZ designs to climate change nutrient and sediment loadings to streams. We designed 135 simulation scenarios starting with the six baselines RBZs (grass, urban, two-zone forest, three-zone forest, wildlife, and naturalized) in three 12-digit Hydrologic Unit Code watersheds within the Albemarle-Pamlico river basin (USA). Using the hydrologic and water quality system (HAWQS), we assessed the sensitivity of the designs to five water quality indicator (WQI) parameters: dissolved oxygen (DO), total phosphorous (TP), total nitrogen (TN), sediment (SD), and biochemical oxygen demand (BD). To understand the climate mitigation potential of RBZs, we identified a subset of future climate change projection models of air temperature and precipitation using EPA’s Locating and Selecting Scenarios Online tool. Analyses revealed optimal RBZ designs for the three watersheds. In terms of watershed ecosystem services sustainability, the optimal Urban RBZ in contemporary climate (1983–2018) reduced SD from 61–96%, TN from 34–55%, TP from 9–48%, and BD from 53–99%, and raised DO from 4–10% with respect to No-RBZ in the three watersheds. The late century’s (2070–2099) extreme mean annual climate changes significantly increased the projected SD and BD; however, the addition of urban RBZs was projected to offset the climate change reducing SD from 28–94% and BD from 69–93% in the watersheds. All other types of RBZs are also projected to fully mitigate the climate change impacts on WQI parameters except three-zone RBZ.

Keywords: riparian buffer zone; watershed; water quality; sustainability; ecosystem services (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/22/12380/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/22/12380/ (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:13:y:2021:i:22:p:12380-:d:675559

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 ().