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ASSESSING THE WATER QUALITY IMPACTS OF GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE IN SOUTHWESTERN OHIO, U.S.A
Citation:
Liu, A. J., S. Y. Tong, AND J A. Goodrich*. ASSESSING THE WATER QUALITY IMPACTS OF GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE IN SOUTHWESTERN OHIO, U.S.A. Presented at 25th Annual Applied Geography Conference, Binghamton, NY, 10/23-26/2002.
Description:
This paper uses a watershed-scale hydrologic model (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) to simulate the water quality impacts of future climate change in the Little Miami River (LMR) watershed in southwestern Ohio. The LMR watershed, the principal source of drinking water for 1.6 million people, is a predominantly agricultural watershed in a humid climate regime. Past and current climatological and land-use data were used to calibrate and validate the hydrologic model. Future climate change scenarios were simulated using results from the United Kingdom Hadley Centre's model and recent IPCC reports, which report that precipitation changes in the region could vary by 20 percent, and that temperatures could increase by 2 to 4 degrees Celsius. Ten climate scenarios were simulated. Daily flow changed by 35 percent in the climate change scenarios, with the wet scenarios experiencing higher runoff than the dry scenarios. Changes in flow appear to be greater than changes in nonpoint source pollutant load. The results indicate that the water quality impacts of future climate changes are large enough to warrant a significant planning response.