Accepted Manuscript

Research papers

Potential implications of climate change and urbanization on watershed hydrol-

ogy

D. Pumo, E. Arnone, A. Francipane, D. Caracciolo, L.V. Noto

PII: S0022-1694(17)30595-4
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2017.09.002
Reference: HYDROL 22222

To appear in: Journal of Hydrology

Received Date: 30 March 2017

Revised Date: 28 August 2017
Accepted Date: 2 September 2017

Please cite this article as: Pumo, D., Arnone, E., Francipane, A., Caracciolo, D., Noto, L.V., Potential implications
of climate change and urbanization on watershed hydrology, Journal of Hydrology (2017), doi: http://dx.doi.org/
10.1016/j.jhydrol.2017.09.002

This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers
we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and
review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process
errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.
Potential implications of climate change and urbanization

on watershed hydrology

D. Pumo1, E. Arnone1,2, A. Francipane1, D. Caracciolo3, L.V. Noto1

[1]{Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile, Ambientale, Aerospaziale, dei Materiali, Università degli Studi

di Palermo, Viale delle Scienze, Edificio 8, 90128, Palermo, Italy}

[2]{AMIGO climate s.r.l., Via Flaminia 48, I-00196 Roma, Italy}

[3]{Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile, Ambientale e Architettura, Università di Cagliari, via Marengo

2, Cagliari, Italy}

Correspondence to: Dario Pumo (email: dario.pumo@unipa.it – phone: +39 091 23896519;

fax: +39 091 427121)

Other authors’ email: Elisa Arnone (elisa.arnone@unipa.it);

Antonio Francipane (antonio.francipane@unipa.it);

Domenico Caracciolo (caracciolo@unica.it);

Leonardo Valerio Noto (leonardo.noto@unipa.it);

Abstract

This paper proposes a modeling framework able to analyze the alterations in watershed

hydrology induced by two recurrent drivers for hydrological changes: climate change and

urbanization. The procedure is based on the coupling of a stochastic weather generator with a

land use change model for the generation of some hypothetical scenarios. The generated

scenarios are successively used to force a physically-based and spatial distributed

hydrological model to reconstruct the basin response under different conditions. Several

potential climate alterations are simulated by imposing negative and positive variations in the

mean annual precipitation and a simultaneous temperature increase. Urbanization is

conceptualized by an increase in the impervious fraction of the basin. The procedure is

applied to a large basin and a much smaller sub-basin; the results show how climate and land

1
use changes may interact and affect the fundamental hydrological dynamics and how the

processes governing basin hydrological response may change with spatial scale.

Keywords

Hydrological Change; Climate Change; Land Use and Cover Change; Urbanization; tRIBS.

1 Introduction

Natural and anthropogenic pressures on hydrological systems often coexist and mutually

interact, contributing to deeply modify watershed hydrology and determining relevant

alterations in many hydrological processes, which are commonly referred to as “hydrological

changes” (Ceola et al., 2014). Natural pressures are essentially related to modifications

induced by the intrinsic variability of the different natural processes involved in the water

cycle. Anthropogenic pressures are related to all the human activities (e.g., pollution of

streams and aquifers, agricultural and irrigation practices, overexploitation of water resources,

runoff regimentation and regulation, etc.) and human-induced alterations on climate forcings

(e.g., greenhouse gases emission in atmosphere, heat island effect, etc.) and basins’

characteristics (e.g., morphology, land cover and use, soil imperviousness degree, etc.) that

may have a role in modifying the catchment scale hydrological dynamics.

Evaluating the relative weight of such pressures on the observed hydrological changes

represents a very challenging issue, which is the focus of many recent and high-priority

debates within the scientific community. Unsolved questions regarding the assessment of

human impacts on water cycle, the environmental change and related risks, as well as the

most appropriate way for modeling hydrological changes, interactions and feedback between

natural and human induced perturbations, are all objectives defined for the scientific decade

2013-2022 promoted by the International Association of Hydrological Sciences within the

Panta Rhei research initiative “Change in Hydrology and Society” (Montanari et al., 2013).

2
 Among the several possible triggers and physical motivations for hydrological changes

(Ward et al., 2008; Ceola et al., 2014), in this work we focus the attention on the two most

recurrent factors at the global scale: climate change and urbanization.

Climate change is undoubtedly the most studied potential driver for hydrological changes,

especially in the last decade (e.g., Wang and Alimohammadi, 2012; Pumo et al., 2010;

Francipane et al., 2015; Liuzzo et al., 2015; Viola et al., 2016). Climate alterations have

caused widespread impacts on hydrological systems, changing precipitation and extreme

weather events characteristics (Burn et al., 2011; Arnone et al., 2013, Pumo et al., 2016a),

reducing snowfall in favor of rainfall and melting snow and ice in cold regions (Berghuijs et

al., 2014), affecting evapotranspiration processes due to changes in wind speed (McVicar et

al., 2012), atmospheric humidity (Willet et al., 2008), and the radiative component (Wild,

2009), and affecting water resources in terms of both quantity and quality.

According to the fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate

Change – IPCC-5AR (IPCC, 2013), anthropogenic emission of greenhouse gases has

dramatically increased in the last decade, causing many of the observed changes in climate

and global warming. The IPCC-AR5 takes into account four different greenhouse gas

concentration trajectories (i.e., Representative Concentration Pathways – RCP 2.6, 4.5, 6, and

8.5) for making projections, corresponding to four possible hypotheses about the rise of

greenhouse gases emission in the years to come. Even considering the least pessimistic

scenario (i.e., RCP 2.6), future projections draw further warming and long-lasting alterations

in all the components of the climate system, with dry regions becoming drier and wet regions

becoming wetter and, as a consequence, an increase in disparity between dry and wet regions

(Donat et al., 2016). Changes in climate are projected to have significant fallout upon

streamflow regime and the hydrological response of many basins around the world (e.g., Stahl

et al., 2010; Pumo et al., 2016b and 2017, Nazif et al., 2017; Viola et al. 2017).

3
 The continuous urbanization process observed worldwide seems to be another important

driver for hydrological changes. On average, human population is growing across the globe,

becoming increasingly urban also because of higher migration fluxes towards urbanized areas.

Recent studies have estimated that about the 50% of the world’s population currently resides

in urban areas (Cohen, 2003), and this percentage is projected to rise up to the 70% by the

2050 (UN, 2008). This process is often accompanied by an increase in the land uptake for

inhabitant. There is an urgent and growing need to synthesize hydrological responses to this

so rapid process of urbanization to both improve the understanding of the possible impacts on

different aspects (physical, hydrological, chemical, ecological, etc.) of river basins and

efficaciously guide future research and watershed management efforts.

Urbanization leads to a loss in pervious surface which results, on the one hand, in a

reduction of the water infiltration into the soil and, on the other hand, in an alteration of the

natural drainage pathways. Several and different hydrological impacts on watersheds can be

addressed to the process of urbanization (Jacobson, 2011; Salvadore et al., 2015), such as: the

reduction of rainfall interception by tree canopies; a faster response in terms of runoff (Huang

et al., 2008) with higher flow velocities due to a decreased surface roughness; a greater

magnitude of river flow (Hawley and Bledsoe, 2011) with a higher frequency of peak flow

discharges and flood events (Prosdocimi et al., 2015); modifications in runoff composition

(Simmons and Reynolds, 1982).

The future hydrological response of most of the basins across the world might be impacted

simultaneously by climate change and urbanization, and this makes the origin of the induced

changes extremely difficult to be distinguished. Several and different approaches have been

carried out in recent years to study the coupled effects of these two driving forces (Praskievicz

and Chang, 2009; Fletcher et al., 2013). Impacts of such perturbations on watershed

hydrology have been principally explored through the application of hydrological models to

4
real or synthetic cases. Some key literature papers on this topic are summarised in Table 1,

where it is possible to notice how results from different studies are often contrasting about

which of the two potential triggers produces the most relevant changes. These discrepancies

in results strengthen the idea that the two perturbations may have different relative weights on

hydrological changes depending on the regional context, the adopted spatial and temporal

scales, as well as the hydrological variables chosen for the analysis. Final considerations on

which of the two perturbations is prevalent could be affected by the fact that the effects of

urbanization could be exacerbated or counterbalanced by the effects of climate change and

vice-versa, making extremely difficult to recognize the actual weight of each.

This paper aims to explore the sensitivity of hydrological changes to both climate change

and urbanization, analyzing possible modifications induced on some hydrological indicators

and on the different runoff components under different scenarios. Whit this aim we developed

a modeling framework based on the combined use of three models: (1) an advanced weather

generator, i.e. the AWE-GEN (Fatichi et al., 2011); (2) an ad-hoc implemented land use

change model; and (3) a spatially-distributed hydrological model, i.e. the tRIBS (Ivanov et al.,

2004a and 2004b). The analysis has been carried out through synthetic modelling experiments

conducted on the Baron Fork at Eldon river basin (OK, USA) and on a nested and smaller

sub-basin (Peacheater Creek at Christie).

The aforementioned aim of the paper is achieved through three specific objectives that also

provide the structural sub-headings used for the following Materials and Methods section: (i)

reproducing climate schemes, which accounts for different possible future climate alterations

and rainfall properties, by using the AWE-GEN; (ii) reproducing changes in land-use due to

urbanization by using the implemented land use change model; (iii) generating the

hydrological responses of the two basins under different scenarios, which derive from the

combination of climate schemes and land-use maps, by using the tRIBS.

5
Table 1. Summary of some relevant past works, conducted in different environments and with different

approaches, for the assessment of the impact of climate change (CC) and land use change (LUC) on watershed

hydrology (the current paper is added for completeness).

Study Study Site Approach: Hydr. Model Key Results

Location (area) (study period)
Germany: (1) CC can have aggravating and mitigating
Synthetic Scenarios effects depending on rainfall patterns
Bronstert et Selke and Lein BROOK
(GCM - Land-Use
al., 2002 catchments (1860-2100) (2) the higher the rainfall, the smaller is the
Change Model)
(ca.100 km2 ) influence of LUC
China: (1) CC explains 80% of changes in runoff
Chen et al., Retrospective SWAT
Suomo River Basin
2005 (CHARM) (1970-1999)
(ca. 3000 km2) (2) LUC explains 20% of changes in runoff

Retrospective (1) increase in streamflow and baseflow

Indiana (USA): (2) greater influence of LUC than CC
Todd et al., (Historical VIC
3 watersheds
2007 Scenarios from (1940-2005) (3) scarce hydrological changes due to LUC
(variable size)
observations) at larger spatial scale
Retrospective (1) both LUC and temperature change are
Washington (USA):
Cuo et al., (Historical DHSVM important in uplands
Puget Sound Basin
2009 Scenarios from (1915-2006) (2) LUC is the primary driving force in
(ca. 30,000 km2)
observations) lowlands
USA: Budyko (1) CC and human-induced changes are
Wang and Retrospective more severe in arid regions
413 watersheds (1948–1970;
Hejazi, 2011 (data from MOPEX)
(variable size) 1971–2003) (2) greater influence of LUC than CC
(1) Storm event response influenced by
Retrospective
analyses of urbaniz. spatial patterns
Milwaukee (USA): (Historical
streamflow and
Yang et al., Menomonee River Scenarios from (2) Storm event runoff production varies
rainfall
2013 basin and Cedar Hydro-NEXRAD, markedly with land surface
observations
Creek (ca. 300 km2) National Land
(1962-2010) (3) The densely urbanized basin exhibits
Cover Dataset)
larger flood peak discharge
Ontario (Canada): (1) decline in annual runoff;
HBV
Oni et al., Beaver River & Synthetic Scenarios
(2041-2070; (2) changes in the hydrological response
2014 White Creek (GCM)
2071-2100) exacerbated by human activities
(ca. 300 km2)
Synthetic Scenarios (1) extreme low flows decrease by CC and
(weather generator less sensitive to LUC
Belgium: CCI-HYDR -
Tavakoli et WetSpa (2) extreme peak flows increase due to both
Grote Nete watershed logistic
al., 2014 (2036-2065) CC and LUC
(385 km2) regres./cellular
automata landuse (3) increase in frequency of high and low
change model) flows due to coupled CC and urbaniz.
(1) greater impact of CC than urbaniz.
(2) urbaniz. spatial pattern is more relevant
at finer time-scales
Oklahoma (USA): Synthetic Scenarios
Baron Fork at Eldon (weather generator (3) negative trends in rainfall lead to an
tRIBS
This study & Peacheater Creek AWE-GEN - cellular increase in the fastest runoff component
(present-2100)
at Christie automata landuse (4) positive trends in rainfall affect less
(variable size) change model) runoff components repartition
5) changes for larger basins less evident
than for smaller basins

GCM= General Circulation Models; BROOK=hydrologic model for eastern forests; CHARM=Climate and Human
Activities-sensitive Runoff Model; SWAT= Soil and Water Assessment Tool; VIC = Variable Infiltration Capacity;
DHSVM=Distributed Hydrology-Soil-Vegetation Model; MOPEX=Model Parameter Estimation Experiment;
HBV=Hydrologiska Byråns Vattenbalansavdelning; WetSpa= Water and Energy Transfer in Soil, Plant and Atmosphere

6
 This study differs from most of the current literature on this topic for the simultaneous

introduction of some innovative aspects, such as: (i) the consideration of a wide range of

possible future trends, embracing possible extreme trends projected for the next century in

many regions across the world; (ii) the use of a novel land use change model that allows also

to evaluate the importance of considering the spatial distribution of built-up areas for

urbanization processes in hydrological applications; (iii) the use of an advanced hydrological

model, enabling a comprehensive high-resolution distributed analysis on several aspects,

some of which rarely investigated, such as the runoff components partitioning or the potential

changes in evapotranspiration fluxes; and (iv) a quantitative analysis on the influence of the

basin area in hydrological changes production (i.e., spatial scale effects), through the

comparison of the results obtained at the main basin and at the sub-basin.

2 Theoretical Background

2.1 Hydrological Model: tRIBS

The TIN-based Real-time Integrated Basin Simulator - tRIBS (Ivanov et al., 2004a and

2004b) is an advanced hydrological physically-based model that explicitly considers the

spatial variability of land-surface descriptors and uses an adaptive multiple resolution

approach, based on a triangulated irregular networks (TIN), to represent the terrain

topography.

The model is capable to solve basin hydrology at very high temporal (i.e., hourly) and

spatial (10-100m) resolutions, simulating most of the natural hydrological processes (e.g.,

interception, evapotranspiration, lateral redistribution, surface and subsurface runoff,

groundwater level, etc.). Moreover, it simulates the interactions of the fluxes inside the

surface soil layers, the unsaturated zone and the water table. Evapotranspiration is estimated

through a surface energy model, based on the Penman-Monteith method. Short-wave and long

7
wave radiation components are simulated accounting for geographic location, time of year,

aspect and slope of the element surface (Bras, 1990).

As an important aspect for the application in this work, the model reproduces four different

mechanisms of runoff generation, thus capturing the highly complex hydrological response in

a basin so differently affected by the imposed perturbations. Specifically, it reproduces the

surface runoff generation for saturation excess and infiltration excess (fast runoff

components), the perched subsurface streamflow and the groundwater exfiltration (slow

runoff component). The infiltration process is strictly related to the soil characteristics and the

runoff generation. The parameterization of the infiltration process involves the assumption of

gravity-dominated flow in heterogeneous, anisotropic soils. Evolution of the wetting front and

top front in an element may lead to unsaturated, perched, surface, and completely saturated

states. The unsaturated and saturated zones are coupled, accounting for the interaction of the

moving infiltration front with a variable groundwater table. Topography and soil control the

magnitude of the lateral moisture transfer in the unsaturated zone.

The model has been successfully used in various applications, demonstrating its capability

in well reproducing the hydrological response across different climate and basins (e.g., Vivoni

et al., 2005; Mascaro et al., 2013; Moreno et al., 2016), as well as in reproducing synthetic

experiments (e.g., Noto et al., 2008; Caracciolo et al., 2014). Moreover, the flexibility in the

structure and the capability in well reproducing the main hydrological processes, made it very

suitable for the coupled use with additional components for the assessment of other

geomorphic processes, thus expanding its applicability (e.g., Francipane et al., 2012; Arnone

et al., 2016; Dialynas et al., 2016; Pumo et al., 2016c). For further details concerning the

model structure, parameterization and forcings, interested readers are referred to the original

papers.

8
2.2 Weather Generator: AWE-GEN

The Advanced WEather GENerator, AWE-GEN (Fatichi et al., 2011), is a statistical

hourly stationary model capable to reproduce statistical properties of several weather

variables including precipitation, cloudiness, shortwave radiation, air temperature, and wind

speed over a range of time scales. Below, only some details relative to the internal models for

rainfall and temperature series generation are reported, since these are the only two climatic

variables involved in trends application for this work, while interested readers are referred to

the original paper for a comprehensive description of the overall weather generator model.

The AWE-GEN uses the Neyman-Scott Rectangular Pulse (NSRP) approach to generate

the internal structure of the precipitation process. Storms origin occurs in a Poisson process

with the arrival time represented by the parameter λ [hr-1]. Each storm origin generates a

random number of raincells C according to a geometrical distribution with mean µc [-].

Raincells displacement from storm origin is assumed to be exponentially distributed with

mean β-1 [hr]. A rectangular pulse, with duration exponentially distributed with mean η-1 [hr]

and intensity distributed according to a Gamma distribution with shape parameter α and scale

parameter θ [mm/hr], is associated to each raincell. The precipitation model is then based on a

total of six parameters (i.e., λ, µc, β, η, α, and θ) that, in order to take into account possible

seasonality in site climatology, are estimated on a monthly basis.

Air temperature series are generated with a mixed physics-based and stochastic approach

developed by Ivanov et al. (2007). In particular, the temperature at the generic time t is

calculated as the sum of a stochastic and a deterministic component; the former is estimated

through an autoregressive model, while the latter is assumed to be directly related to the

divergence of radiative and eddy heat fluxes. The parameters and the coefficients used to

estimate the temperature are evaluated at the monthly scale.

9
2.3 Land Use Change Model

In order to study the effects of complex dynamics of urban growth on potential

hydrological changes, it is here developed and adopted a land use change model capable to

reproduce a prefixed increment in the impervious fraction of a basin. As other widely used

land use change models (e.g., CA-MARKOV by Subedi et al., 2013), this model is

characterized by an inductive approach, based on the fact that future changes are modeled on

the basis of changes that have occurred in the past, through the analysis of a set of explanatory

variables that somehow may have played a role in determining occurred changes.

The proposed model belongs to the class of probabilistic cellular automata models, based

on: (i) the raster schematization of the basin; (ii) the definition of an initial status at any cell of

the raster structure; and (iii) the iterative generation of a new grid at each successive temporal

step (i.e., 1 year) according to time invariant fixed rules that determine the new status in each

cell as a function of its previous status and the status of the cells in its neighborhood.

Two possible status are allowed as initial status at any cell of the raster, i.e., urban or not-

urban. The basic criterion is that the initial not-urban cells, not located on the stream network,

are “available” to be replaced by new urban cells, while the inverse process (i.e., initial urban

cells replaced by new not-urban cells) cannot occur. It is worth emphasizing that some recent

strategies of Low Impact Development (LID), aimed to minimize the urbanization impact on

hydrology (e.g., through Green Infrastructures or integrated techniques to reduce impervious

surfaces), have led to some examples of reconversion from classical (impervious) urban

surface to less impervious urban surface of “new conception”. As previously said, this

possible process is here neglected.

Once the temporal horizon (T) and the initial and final fractions of urban areas are set, the

model computes the initial (ni) and final (nf) number of urban cells and, consequently, the

total number of initially not-urban cells that, after T years, will be replaced by urban cells. An

10
imposed positive and linear trend in the urbanization process allows determining the number

of cells that will be urbanized at every temporal step (n yr). A value of probability of being

urbanized (urbanization probability) is first associated to each “available” cell (configuration

process) and, successively, a new grid is generated at each step starting from the previous one

and replacing the first n yr “available” cells with higher urbanization probability by “new”

urban cells.

The model, schematically represented in Fig. 1, requires as input a raster layer of the basin

with information about the slope and the initial status (i.e., urban or not-urban) of each cell

and the stream network location. It reproduces urban areas growth according to two different

modalities: random urban expansion and rule-based urban expansion. The two possible

operational modalities differ in the configuration process for the assignment of the

urbanization probability to each “available” cell. When the model is set on the random urban

expansion mode, an equal urbanized probability is assigned to all the “available” cells at each

iteration and, thus, the urbanization process evolves randomly.

Figure 1. Schematic representation of the Land Use Change Model. Flow chart of the model on the left. In the

box on the right hand side, within the red contour, the Moore neighborhood (Ring 1) and the extended Moore

neighborhood (Ring 2) for a generic “available” cell (in blue). SUB and SLB are the slope class limits (Table 2).

11
 The rule-based urban expansion mode follows “rational” criteria according to which urban

areas arguably tend to expand around pre-existing urban zones, in easily accessible area with

gentle slopes. For such modality, the urbanization probability of each available cell depends

on: (i) the cell slope (higher probability is assigned to cells with lower slope); (ii) the total

number of contiguous urban cells; and (iii) the total number of urban cells in the

neighborhood.

Table 2. Criteria for the assignment, at any iteration, of the urbanization probability to each available cell

according to the rule-based urban expansion mode. UC= previous urban cell. Num of UC= number of UC.

SUB= slope upper bound. SLB= slope lower bound. SUB-SLB= slope within the range between SLB and SUB.

For instance, class 5 is constituted by cells with slope within the range SUB-SLB, without any urban cell within

the Ring 1 and with one or more urban cells within the Ring 2; cells in class 5 are ranked first depending on the

number of urban cells surrounding each within the Ring 2 and then, at equal rank, on the basis of their slope.

Urbanization Presence of UC Ranking Criteria

Probability Class Slope Class Ring 1 Ring 2 1st order 2nd order

0 >SUB no no slope -

scarcely probable 1 >SUB no yes slope Num. of UC in Ring 2

2 >SUB yes yes Num. of UC in Ring 1 slope

3 SUB-SLB no no slope -

probable 4 <SLB no no slope -

5 SUB-SLB no yes Num. of UC in Ring 2 slope

6 <SLB no yes slope Num. of UC in Ring 2

highly probable 7 SUB-SLB yes yes Num. of UC in Ring 1 slope

8 <SLB yes yes Num. of UC in Ring 1 slope

The entire domain of urbanization probability is divided into 9 equally spaced classes of

probability (Table 2). At any iteration, each “available” cell is associated to one of the classes

depending on the occurrence of one or more of the following conditions: slope lower, higher

12
or between a fixed range; presence/absence of urban cells within the Moore neighborhood

(Ring 1, including the eight cells surrounding the central analyzed cell on a two-dimensional

square lattice 3x3); presence/absence of urban cells within the extended Moore neighborhood

(Ring 2, including the forty-eight cells surrounding the central analyzed cell on a two-

dimensional square lattice 7x7). The cells within each class are successively ranked, first

according to a 1 st order criterion and then, if needed (e.g., for two or more cells with the same

rank), according to a 2nd order criterion, following fixed ranking criteria specific for each

probability class and reported in Table 2. Finally, in order not to have two cells with the same

probability, an increasing and equally spaced probability (within the class probability range)

is assigned to each cell depending on its rank. Once the probability values are assigned to all

the cells of the basin, they are rescaled so that they sum to one.

Model parameters are: the temporal horizon; the operative time step for new grids

generation; the projected percent variation of the fraction of urban areas over the selected

temporal horizon. An internal calibration setting concerns the definition of three classes of

slope considered to generate the different urbanization probability classes (Table 2): it

includes the definition of an upper bound for the cell slope, SUB, above which urbanization

can be considered as “scarcely probable” and a lower bound, SLB, below which urbanization

can be considered as “highly probable”. Model output will be a new raster of urban areas

representative of the projected future conditions.

3 Study Area

The application presented in this work represents a synthetic experiment carried out on the

Baron Fork at Eldon river basin (Oklahoma - USA) and its nested sub-basin Peacheater

Creek at Christie. Namely, the effects of opportunely generated and combined synthetic

climate/land-use scenarios on real-world case studies are evaluated. These case studies have

13
been selected since they were originally used to test, calibrate and validate the tRIBS model

(Ivanov et al., 2004a and 2004b). Information available from past works (Ivanov et al., 2004b;

Noto et al., 2008) has been here used to characterize the spatial distribution and the properties

of soils and land cover, as well as the topological and geomorphologic characteristics of the

case study. A 100 m resolution Digital Elevation Model (DEM), available at the link

http://vivoni.asu.edu/tribs/watershed.html, has been used to represent the topography of the

study area (Fig. 2).

Figure 2. Digital Elevation Model (DEM) and stream network for Baron Fork at Eldon and Peacheater Creek at

Christie river basins.

The Baron Fork at Eldon (hereinafter Main Basin, MB) is characterized by a drainage area

of about 800 km2 and elevation ranging between 218 and 587 m a.s.l. (mean elevation equal

to 346 m a.s.l.). The terrain of the watershed is characterized by gentle slopes at the basin

headwaters and quite rugged terrain in its lower areas. About 52% of the basin is occupied by

deciduous and evergreen forests, while almost 45.8% is occupied by croplands, orchards and

bare soils. The remaining 2.4% is occupied by built up areas. The surface soil texture is

primarily silt loam (94%) and fine sandy loam (6%).

14
 The Peacheater Creek at Christie (hereinafter Sub-Basin, SB) has a drainage area of about

64 km2, with elevations ranging between 248 and 432 m. a.s.l. (mean elevation equal to 328

m a.s.l.). The sub-basin is characterized by gentle (slopes between 2 and 5%) to steep (slopes

between 15 and 40%) hillslopes. The vegetation is a mixture of oak-hickory-pine forest

grasslands (mainly located in the southern part of the basin) and cropland-urban areas (mainly

in the northern region). The impervious fraction of the sub-basin is estimated in about 1.56%.

The predominant soil is made of gravelly silt loams.

4 Materials and Methods

4.1 Objective 1: generation of the climate schemes

A total of nine different climate schemes has been created by the AWE-GEN. Each scheme

includes 30-year hourly time-series for all the variables required by the tRIBS (i.e.,

temperature, rainfall, air humidity, wind speed, air pressure and sky cover).

The first generated climate scheme (Baseline) is a control period relative to the current

conditions, which has been created by inferring the AWE-GEN parameters from hourly

climate data recorded from 1992 to 1998 at the Fayetteville weather station (located in close

proximity to the basins: 36°1’N, 94°166’W). The current climate is characterized by a mean

air temperature of 14.6°C and a not seasonal pluviometric regime; on average, the annual

precipitation (approximately 1,160 mm) results from about 48 storm events per year with a

mean duration of 1.53 hr and a mean intensity of 15.70 mm/hr.

The other eight climate schemes have been obtained by imposing a fixed positive trend in

temperature and different trends in precipitation. For such schemes, no trends in the other

climate variables have been imposed.

In view of the objectives of this study, the considered trends for the generation of the

future climate schemes derive from widespread limit conditions projected for the next century

15
at the global level by the IPCC-5AR (IPCC, 2013) and not from projections specific for the

area under analysis. With regard to the temperature, the trend considered for all the future

climate schemes, consists in an increase of 2.6 °C in the mean annual temperature. This value

can be considered as a very likely projection for the mean global annual temperature increase

over a temporal horizon of 100 years, since it is simultaneously falling within the “likely”

range defined for three of the four hypothesized emission trajectories for the period 2081-

2100 by the IPCC-5AR; specifically, it is the upper bound for the “moderately optimistic”

RCP 4.5 “likely” range, a medium value for the “moderate” scenario RCP 6, and the lower

bound for the range relative to the “pessimistic” RCP 8.5.

With regard to the future rainfall trends, in order to simulate in a comprehensive manner

the different climate changes over various regions of the Earth, two opposite IPCC-5AR

“likely” projections for the period 2081-2100 and under the most pessimistic greenhouse gas

concentration trajectory (i.e., RCP 8.5) have been considered: the reduction by the 25% of the

mean annual precipitation (MAP) forecasted for most of mid-latitudes and sub-tropical dry

regions, and the increment by the 25% of the MAP forecasted for some high-latitudes and

equatorial Pacific regions and for many wet regions at the mid-latitudes.

The generated future precipitation schemes can then be distinguished between schemes

under the condition CN, considering a negative trend in MAP (-25% with respect to the

Baseline) and schemes under the condition CP, with a positive trend in MAP (+25% with

respect to the Baseline). For each of these two conditions, four different types of climate

schemes (A, B, C, D), with equal MAP and characterized by a different rainstorm

characterization, have been created by the AWE-GEN according to the following criteria:

A. variation in MAP exclusively due to an equal percent variation in the frequency of

storm events (i.e., -25% in the mean number of storms per year for CNA and +25% for

CPA), while the mean rainfall intensity and duration remain unaltered;

16
 B. variation in MAP obtained reducing (CNB) or increasing (CPB) by the 25% the mean

intensity of rainfall events, while the mean frequency and duration of rainfall events

remain unchanged;

C. intermediate case between A and B, obtained by the application of an equal percent

variation to both the rainstorm frequency and intensity (i.e., -13.4% for the CNC and

+11.8% for the CPC);

D. variation in MAP obtained by increasing the mean storm intensity by the 50% for both

the CND and CPD and, consequently, reducing the mean frequency of rainfall events (-

50% for CND and -16.67% for CPD).

Figure 3. Mean annual number and intensity of rainfall events for each climate scheme generated by the AWE-

GEN. Circles of the same color are characterized by the same mean annual precipitation (MAP) accordingly to

the legend. Dashed lines graphically sketch the criteria used to generate the different types of climate scheme:

Schemes type A (variation in only rainfall frequency); Schemes type B (variation in only rainfall intensity);

Schemes type C (equal percent variation for both rainfall frequency and intensity); Schemes type D (fixed

increment in rainfall intensity and consequent variation in frequency).

17
 The main rainfall event characteristics of the generated climate schemes are schematically

represented in Fig. 3. Some minor discrepancies in the resulting mean annual frequency and

intensity of rainfall events with respect to the parameters fixed in the AWE-GEN for each

scheme can be noticed because of the stochastic nature of the weather generator. Details on

the mean annual temperature (MAT), MAP, and rainstorm characteristics (i.e., frequency,

intensity, and duration) for each climate scheme are reported in Table 3.

Table 3. Main characteristics of the generated climate schemes (MAT = Mean Annual Temperature; MAP=

Mean Annual Precipitation; mean annual rainfall events Frequency, Duration and Intensity) and Land Use Maps.

Applied trends are reported in brackets. Italic characters are used to highlight the parameters where a trend is

applied. MB= main basin; SB=sub-basin. On the right hand side, the simulation scheme, with the considered

application basins (MB, SB or both SB/MB) for each climate-land use scenarios.

Land Use Map

Temp. Precipitation U0 U1 U2 R

Climate 9.28% 16.24% 16.24%

MAT MAP Freq. Dur. Int. MB(*) 2.32%
Scheme (+300%) (+600%) (+600%)

°C mm/yr 1/hr hr mm/hr SB(*) 1.56% 16.54% 25.69% 15.38%

14.6 1160 0.0055 1.53 15.7 Baseline SB/MB MB SB/MB MB

0.0041 1.59 15.1 CNA SB - SB -

17.2 870 0.0056 1.56 11.3 CNB SB - SB -

(+2.6°C) (-25%) 0.0047 1.56 13.6 CNC SB/MB MB SB/MB -

0.0029 1.43 24.1 CND SB - SB -

0.0068 1.57 15.6 CPA SB - SB -

17.2 1450 0.0056 1.45 20.3 CPB SB - SB -

(+2.6°C) (+25%) 0.0059 1.58 17.7 CPC SB/MB MB SB/MB -

0.0045 1.60 22.8 CPD SB - SB -

(*) % Urban Areas

18
 It is worth emphasizing that climate model projections have suggested an intensification of

extreme precipitation intensities that could be ascribed to the increased capability of holding

moisture due to a warmer atmosphere, governed by the thermodynamics Clasius-Clapyeron

(CC) relation (+6-7%°C-1). Several studies have demonstrated different scaling relationships

at sub-daily timescales (e.g. Westra et al 2014), with scaling varying with the temperature

distribution and depending on the rainfall type (e.g., Blenkinsop et al., 2015); different

approaches have been specifically developed for simulating future rainfall sequences under

warmer climate by conditioning parameters on their historically observed sensitivity to

temperature (e.g. Wasko and Sharma, 2015 and 2017). The climatic schemes of type D here

generated, account for such a type of relationship between precipitation and temperature,

considering conditions even more severe than the most extreme observed case, since the

imposed percent increment (+50%) of rainfall intensity is well above the mean increment

(+36.4%) that would be obtained considering the so-called “super-CC scaling” (i.e., 2xCC;

e.g., Blenkinsop et al., 2015) and the imposed temperature increment (+2.6°C).

4.2 Objective 2: creation of land use maps

The urbanization process is highly variable at the global level, since it depends on a variety

of local factors, such as the socio-economic attractiveness of the available areas for

urbanization and the political, social, and geographical context in which the process is

evaluated. As for the climate schemes generation, we considered the current land use map as

the baseline map (U0) and three hypothetical future land use maps (U1, U2, and R) generated

by imposing different urbanization trends in the land use change model described in Sect. 2.3.

Spatial heterogeneity of land use, vegetation cover, and soils are accounted for in tRIBS by

assigning the relevant land use/soil texture type to the nodes of the computational domain. As

in Ivanov et al. (2004b), in this study the classes of land use and vegetation are overlapped to

19
define three different classes: forest, grassland and urban. Each class is characterized by the

parameters derived from Ivanov et al. (2004b) and Noto et al. (2008) and reported in Table 4;

within-class parameter variations are not allowed thus reducing the potential for over-

parameterization.

Through the application of the land use change model to generate the future maps, some of

the forest and grassland cells (assumed as not-urban cell) can be replaced by urban cells,

characterized by the parameters corresponding to the urban class, listed in Table 4. The input

raster layer for model, containing information relative to the slope, the stream network, and

the existing urban areas of the basin, was obtained by crossing three different raster layers: the

first one, obtained from the DEM, includes the slopes, while the last two were obtained by

rasterizing the map of the stream network and the current land use map, respectively, with the

same spatial resolution of the DEM (i.e., 100 m).

Table 4. Soil parameters for each land use type. θsat is the soil moisture at saturation; Ksat is the saturated

hydraulic conductivity; ψb is the air entry bubbling pressure; λ is the pore-size distribution index. The residual

soil moisture is equal to 0.05 mm3/mm3 for all the soil types (source: Ivanov et al., 2004b; Noto et al., 2008)

θsat Ksat ψb λ
Soil Type
mm3/mm3 mm/hr mm -
Urban 0.3 0.5 -400 0.2
Grassland 0.3 3 -200 0.25
Forest 0.4 30 -100 0.6

Given the synthetic nature of our experiment, some rough assumptions have been made to

set the land use change model parameters. A temporal horizon of 100 years has been fixed

consistently with that selected for the generation of future climate schemes, while the

operative time step has been fixed equal to 1 year. With regard to the parameters SUB and

SLB, we first derived the cumulative distribution function of the slopes of the initial (at time

0) “available” cells and, then, assumed the slope corresponding to the 75th percentile (equal to

20
9.75°) as upper bound, SUB, and the slope at the 25% percentile (i.e., 2.35°) as lower bound,

SLB. This hypothesis leads to assume the urbanization process as probable in cells with slope

lower than SUB; this is confirmed by the observation of the current land use map, where the

mean slope of cells classified as urban is 3.6°, about the 47% of urban cells has slopes lower

than SLB and the 95% lower than SUB. Clearly, the model application to real cases requires

an appropriate calibration procedure.

Given the low current fraction of urban areas within the case study (2.32% at the MB),

relative high percent increments of urbanization have been imposed to the entire basin (MB)

to generate the future land use maps; increments of urban areas in the sub-basin (SB) are

consequence of the land use change model application at the MB.

The maps U1 and U2 have been obtained imposing an urbanization of +300% and 600%,

respectively, under the operational modality of rule-based urban expansion, while the map R

has been obtained imposing the same percent increment of U2 under the random urban

expansion modality with the aim to study the influence of the spatial pattern of urbanization

processes. The chosen increments are coherent with some trends observed in many fast

developing regions of the world such as Africa or Asia. For instance, Gumindoga et al.

(2014), through the comparison of land cover satellite images (Landsat 5 TM) acquired at

different times, verified an increment of more than the 200% and 500% in only 23 years

(from 1986 to 2008) for two catchments in Zimbabwe. The intermediate percent increment of

+300% considered for the map U1 is consistent with commonly observed trends over the last

two decades within developed geopolitical areas, such as Europe or north-America (e.g., UN,

2008; Prokop et al., 2011).

The different future land use maps are represented in Fig. 4 together with the current map

(U0). Coherently with the values set in the model, at the MB the fraction of urban areas has

increased up to the 9.28% for U1 and 16.24% for U2 and R, while even higher values result

21
for the SB (Table 3). As it can be noticed from the histograms reported in Fig. 4, the fraction

of forest at the MB remains almost unaltered when the rule-based urban expansion criterion is

considered (i.e., U1 and U2) and the new urban cells show a clear tendency to settle on cells

previously classified as grassland, where slopes are usually lower and a higher density of

urban nuclei in the surrounding zones can be noticed in the current map (U0 in Fig. 4).

Figure 4. Land Use Maps for the Baron Fork at Eldon (MB): Current U0, intermediate U1 (+300% urban fraction

percent increment under the rule-based urban expansion mode), and maximum urbanization maps (+600% urban

fraction percent increment) under the rule-based urban expansion mode (U2) and the random urban expansion

mode (R). The histograms in the subsets show the relative percentages of the three land use classes at the basins

for the different maps. Red contour, in both the maps and the histograms, denotes the Peacheater Creek at

Christie (SB) sub-basin.

22
 The same behavior occurs at the SB (characterized by an initial relative percentage of

grassland higher than the MB) and explains why the land use change model application leads

for the SB to a percent increment of urbanization that is higher than that relative to the MB.

Under the random urban expansion hypothesis (i.e., R), the final increment in the relative

percentage of urban cells within the MB is approximately equally partitioned between cells

previously classified as grassland and forest since the initial percentage of these two land use

classes was almost the same (44.9% for grassland and 52.8% for forest).

4.3 Objective 3: hydrological responses under different scenarios

Several stationary (in both climate and land use) scenarios, obtained by combining the

generated climate schemes (Sect. 4.1) and land use maps (Sect. 4.2), are here explored.

Potentially, 36 different scenarios can be obtained by the combination of the 9 climate

schemes and the 4 land use maps previously generated. In order to reduce the complexity of

the analysis and simplify the results presentation, simulations have been carried out for only

22 scenarios according to the simulation scheme reported in Table 3. The symbolism used to

identify each scenario involves the use of a code defined by a first part referring to the climate

scheme (Baseline, CNi, or CPi, with i=A, B, C or D) and a second part referring to the

considered land use map (U0, U1, U2, R); for instance, the scenario CPC-U2 refers to the

climate scheme CPC, i.e., positive trend in MAP (CP) and rainstorm characterization of type

C, with the map U2.

The hydrological response under the different scenarios is studied, through various

hydrological indicators, in terms of annual water balance components, flow duration curve of

daily flow and runoff component partitioning. The basin response resulting from the

considered scenarios has been analyzed, in some cases, only at the MB or at the SB, and, in

other cases, at both the basins (Table 3). In particular, the different effects of the application

23
of all the climate schemes under the various modalities (i.e., CNi or CPi) are analyzed in a

comprehensive manner exclusively for the SB, considering only scenarios with the U0 and U2

land use maps. The extensive analysis on the effects of different trends in the urbanization

process (U1, U2 and R) is focused only on the MB (Table 3), showing the results relative to

only scenarios including, as climate schemes, the Baseline and future climate schemes of the

type C (CNC and CPC), which represents the intermediate schematization with variations in

both the rainstorm frequency and intensity.

5 Results

5.1 Changes in the annual water balance components

The first class of explored indicators involves a set of descriptors of the hydrological

regime such as the mean annual values and the interannual variability for the principal basin-

scale water balance components. Different box-plots, with indication of the quartiles (25th,

50th and 75th percentiles), the minimum and the maximum (lower and upper whiskers,

respectively), and the mean (gray points), are represented in Figs. 5 and 6 with regard to the

annual values (mm/yr) of precipitation, actual evapotranspiration and runoff for each scenario.

More specifically, Fig. 5 refers to the precipitation, which is equal for the MB and the SB,

since it is assumed as uniformly distributed over the entire study area. Changes in

precipitation regime rely only on the stochastic generation of the various climate schemes by

the AWE-GEN after the imposition of the different trends. No significative differences can be

noticed from Fig. 5 among the various CNi schemes (A, B, C and D), that are all characterized

by the same mean (imposed value) and median, and almost the same interquartile range (IQR)

that is essentially unaltered also with respect to the Baseline (i.e., ca. 240 mm).

With regard to the CPi schemes, the median values for the cases A and C (both

characterized by an increment in the rainfall frequency) are significantly lower (i.e., ca. -60

24
mm) than the corresponding mean values, denoting an appreciable degree of skewness. Apart

from the CPD (unique case with a decrement in rainfall frequency), where the IQR is

essentially unaltered, the IQR for all the other CPi cases is almost doubled (ca. 460 mm) with

respect to the Baseline, denoting a higher interannual variability of annual rainfall.

Figure 5. Box-plots of annual precipitation for the Baseline, the climate schemes with negative trends (CNA,

CNB, CNC, CND), and those with positive trends (CPA, CPB, CPC, CPD) in precipitation. Gray points refer to the

mean annual values (MAP).

5.1.1 Separate trends application: implications of the urbanization

The box-plots relative to the runoff and evapotranspiration are shown in Fig. 6 for both the

MB (Figs. 6a and 6b) and the SB (Figs. 6c and 6d). The consideration of the urbanization

process as the sole factor of change (under the climatic Baseline) leads to slight increments in

the annual totals of both evapotranspiration and runoff (black box-plots in Fig. 6), which is

directly proportional to the considered increment in the fraction of impervious areas. For the

MB, urbanization induces almost the same, very slight, percentage increment in the mean and

median annual values for both the evapotranspiration (ca. +1.2% under the Baseline-U1 and

+2.4% under the Baseline-U2; Fig. 6a) and the runoff (ca. +1.6% and +4.1%, respectively;

Fig. 6b), while the IQR values are essentially unaltered with respect to the current scenario.
25
The same behavior can be observed also at the SB even if, moving from U0 to U2, the mean

and median of both the annual evapotranspiration (Fig. 6c) and runoff (Fig. 6d) increase more

significantly than in the MB.

Figure 6. Box-plots of annual actual evapotranspiration (left panels: 6a and 6c) and annual runoff (right panels:

6b and 6d) for the MB, Baron Fork at Eldon (upper panels: 6a and 6b), and for the SB, Peacheater Creek at

Christie (lower panels: 6c and 6d). Gray points refer to the mean annual values of runoff and evapotranspiration

(MAR and MAE, respectively).

As it can be noticed from the comparison between the Baseline-U2 and Baseline-R

scenarios at the MB (Figs. 6a and 6b), the random process of urbanization induces percent

increments in the mean annual runoff (MAR) and evapotranspiration (MAE) only slightly

lower (i.e., less than the 2%) than those obtained under the Baseline-U2, while the IQR

remains essentially unaltered.

26
 In order to analyze the influence that spatial variability and scale may have on hydrological

changes induced by the only urbanization, the alterations resulting by the land use map

conversion from U0 to U2 under the Baseline at the MB and at the SB are compared. The

percent increments in MAR (+9.4%) and in MAE (+4.9%) at the SB were more than two

times those resulting at the MB (Fig. 6). Both the runoff and evapotranspiration production at

a larger scale were then less sensitive to the imposed changes in land use, demonstrating that

wider basins tend to attenuate the complex local patterns of water fluxes generation, even if a

not negligible aspect could be the fact that the considered percentage increment of urban areas

for the SB was consistently higher than for the MB (Table 3).

5.1.2 Separate trends application: implications of changes in climate

Table 5 shows the percentage changes in runoff (PCR, %) and evapotranspiration (PCAE,

%) for each future scenarios with respect to the reference scenario (Baseline-U0). In the same

table, the results of a sensitivity analysis of the two water balance components to precipitation

are also shown; in particular, SR is the sensitivity of runoff to precipitation computed as the

ratio of PCR over the percentage change in precipitation (PCP, %), while SAE is the

sensitivity of evapotranspiration, analogously computed (i.e., SAE=PCAE/PCP).

For both the MB and the SB, the PCAE of the CNC-U0 is consistently different in absolute

value from that of the CPC-U0 (Table 5), despite the considered perturbations in precipitation

for the two cases are equal in magnitude (i.e., ±290 mm/yr in MAP). This could be explained

by the fact that, under the CNC-U0, the reduction in precipitation produces a decrease in the

evapotranspiration process, due to a reduced soil water supply, that is partially compensated

by the increment of the atmospheric water demand due to the increment in temperature; on the

contrary, for the case of CPC-U0, the increment in both precipitation and temperature produces

similar and overlapping effects on evapotranspiration (i.e., increment).

27
Table 5. Percentage (%) changes in the Mean Annual Runoff (PCR) and Mean Annual Evapotranspiration

(PCAE) with respect to the reference scenario (Baseline-U0). Sensitivity of runoff (SR) and evapotranspiration

(SAE) to variations in precipitation. MB=main basin; SB= sub-basin. Italic refers to results for the SB.

Scenarios Percentage Changes Sensitivities

Climate Land-Use PCR (%) PCAE (%) SR SAE

Scheme Map MB SB MB SB MB SB MB SB

U0 - -57.3 - -3.1 - 2.3 - 0.1

CNA
U2 - -42.5 - 6.9 - 1.7 - -0.3

U0 - -65.4 - 0.6 - 2.6 - 0.0

CNB
U2 - -52.6 - 8.3 - 2.1 - -0.3

U0 -65.5 -60.6 -0.7 -0.5 2.6 2.4 0.0 0.0

CNC U1 -61.1 - 1.7 - 2.4 - -0.1 -

U2 -56.5 -45.7 4.1 9.0 2.3 1.8 -0.2 -0.4

U0 - -41.6 - -8.1 - 1.7 - 0.3

CND
U2 - -26.2 - 3.2 - 1.0 - -0.1

U0 - 45.5 - 11.5 - 1.8 - 0.5

CPA
U2 - 49.9 - 16.5 - 2.0 - 0.7

U0 - 46.3 - 12.0 - 1.9 - 0.5

CPB
U2 - 58.8 - 17.6 - 2.4 - 0.7

U0 46.0 43.7 13.2 13.3 1.9 1.8 0.5 0.5

CPC U1 47.1 - 14.6 - 1.9 - 0.6 -

U2 49.3 52.4 16.0 18.6 2.0 2.1 0.6 0.8

U0 - 50.1 - 11.4 - 2.0 - 0.5

CPD
U2 - 64.5 - 16.8 - 2.6 - 0.7

A higher sensitivity of runoff to precipitation can be noticed when a negative trend is

applied on MAP; for instance, at the MB, the scenario CNC-U0 produces a drastic decrement (-

65.5%) of PCR, while, for the case of CPC-U0, the effects of a higher MAP are partially

28
balanced by the effects due to an increase in evapotranspiration, and the PCR, that in this case

is positive (+46%), results lower, in absolute value, than that relative to the CNC-U0 (Table 5).

Comparing the SR with the SAE, the runoff appears much more sensitive to precipitation

changes than evapotranspiration (Table 5), especially for the scenarios with climate schemes

CNi, where, for both the MB and the SB, MAP reduction with respect to the current scenario is

almost entirely reflected in a reduction of MAR (ca. -250 mm/yr). The sensitivity of

evapotranspiration to precipitation is slightly higher for the scenarios with climate schemes

CPi, where the increment in MAP is partitioned between, for almost two-third, an increase in

MAR (ca. +180 mm/yr) and, for the remaining part, an increase in the water amount lost for

evapotranspiration.

From Fig. 6a, it can be also observed an increased interannual variability (i.e., higher IQR

values) in the annual evapotranspiration for both the cases of CNC-U0 and CPC-U0 at the MB

with respect to the current scenario that could be a direct effect of the increase in temperature

for the two scenarios. The same can be noticed with regard to the runoff (Fig. 6b) under the

CPC-U0, while the runoff IQR for the CNC-U0 results notably reduced. This last aspect could

be related to a reduction in the surface component of runoff, due to the less frequent and

intense precipitation, and which, among the different runoff components, is usually the most

variable and related to rainfall dynamics.

The analysis of the box-plots relative to the SB under the same land use condition (Figs. 6c

and 6d), is extremely useful to quantify the impact of different rainfall characteristics at equal

MAP (i.e., climatic schemes of type A, B, C and D), on the basin hydrological response.

With regard to the evapotranspiration, the results (Fig. 6c and Table 5) relative to the

scenarios considering the U0 map and the CNi schemes show a relevant sensitivity to the

different rainfall characterizations (i.e., A, B, C, and D); when MAP reduction is obtained

through a reduction in rainfall frequency by the 13.4% (CNC), the 25% (CNA), and the 50%

29
(CND), the MAE reduces proportionally by the 0.5%, 3.1% and 8.1%, respectively, while for

CNB, the MAE is even higher (+0.6%) that that relative to the climatic Baseline. The

differences among the responses relative to the four scenarios CPi-U0 (Fig. 6c) are much more

restrained; all these scenarios, in fact, display the same SAE values (Table 5) and almost the

same mean, median and IQR values of evapotranspiration (Fig. 6c).

With regards to the runoff (Fig. 6d), the results for both the negative (CNi) and positive

(CPi) climate perturbations under the different climate configurations (i.e., A, B, C and D) can

be related to those relative to the evapotranspiration (Fig. 6c). The reduction in MAR for the

scenarios CNi-U0, is inversely proportional to the reduction in MAE (Table 5), so that, in

absolute terms, the lowest PCR (-41.6%) is associated to the case with the highest PCAE (i.e.,

CND-U0), while the highest PCR (-65.4%) is associated to the only case with an increase in

MAE (CNB-U0). The same considerations can be transferred to the case of positive climate

perturbations (CPi-U0), where, as for the results relative to the evapotranspiration, no

significative differences in MAR and in the runoff IQR can be noticed among the results

relative to different modalities considered for increasing rainfall annual totals. For all the

cases, the increment in MAP implies an increase in MAR ranging between the 45.5% and the

50.1%, with a maximum (+208 mm/yr) for the case with the lowest MAE and PCAE (CPD-

U0) and a minimum (+182 mm/yr) for the case with the highest MAE and PCAE (CPC-U0).

Comparing the modifications, with respect to the current scenario, produced at the two

basins (MB and SB) by the application of only climate trends (scenarios CNC-U0 and CPC-U0),

it can be noticed how, differently from the previously analyzed case of application of only

land use changes, spatial scale effects on runoff and evapotranspiration annual components

played a negligible role. The annual runoff coefficient passes from about 0.35 for both the

basins (under the Baseline-U0 scenario) to about 0.15 (at the SB) and 0.18 (at the MB) under

the CNC-U0, and about 0.40 for both the basins under the CPC-U0, demonstrating that the

30
application of both negative or positive trends in climate essentially leads to the same

quantitative modifications in the mean annual rainfall-runoff transformation process for the

two basins. In terms of annual evapotranspiration, the differences between the modifications

induced by climate changes at the SB and at the MB are even less marked than those relative

to the runoff component, with essentially the same PCAE (Table 5).

5.1.3 Coupled effect of urbanization and climate changes

For the MB, the MAE (Fig. 6a) increases by the 1.7% and 4.1% for the cases CNC-U1 and

CNC-U2, respectively (Table 5); thus, with regards to the evapotranspiration, an exacerbation

of the effects can be noticed when urbanization and climate changes are simultaneously

applied. As a consequence, an opposite effect can be noticed with regard to the annual runoff

values (Fig. 6b), with a percent reduction in MAR (PCR equal to -61.1% and -56.6% for the

case CNC-U1 and CNC-U2, respectively) significantly lower than that obtained summing the

effects singularly induced by the two types of alterations.

The same behavior can be observed also with regard to the results for the SB (Figs. 6c and

6d). The increments in the annual evapotranspiration induced by the urbanization totally mask

the reduction induced by the CN climate changes for all the cases (A, B, C and D), eventually

resulting in PCAE values (from +3.2% for the case CND-U2 to +9% for the case CNC-U2,

Table 5) higher than the sums of the modifications singularly induced by the two

perturbations. On the contrary, the increase in MAR caused by a higher imperviousness

degree (Fig. 6d) reduces the effects due to a negative trend in MAP, resulting, at the end, in a

percent reduction (PCR from -26.2% for the case CND-U2 to -52.6% for the case CNB-U2,

Table 5) that is, however, lower than the value that would result from the application of the

superposition principle.

Moreover, it is interesting to observe that, in the negative climate schemes A, C and D, the

combination with the urbanization process leads to a change in the PCAE from negative to

31
positive values. This emphasizes the important role of urbanization under negative climate

changes in affecting the evapotranspiration processes. Only the climate scheme CNB shows

positive PCAE for both the two land-use maps meaning that, in the case of less intense but

equally frequent precipitation, the effect of the increase in temperature on evapotranspiration

prevails on the reduction of water supply.

As it can be noticed comparing the SR values in Table 5, relatively to different land use

maps at equal CNi climate scheme, urbanization reduces considerably the sensitivity of runoff

to a reduction in precipitation; in less measure, the opposite can be observed with regard to

the sensitivity of evapotranspiration, SAE.

When positive climate trends (CPi) are applied, the induced modifications in MAE and

MAR are concordant with those induced by the application of the urbanization trends and

much more relevant in terms of relative weight; the simultaneous application of the two types

of perturbations then produces overlapping effects, and, more specifically, an increase in both

the components. In this case, the SR and SAE values in Table 5 highlight how urbanization

increases significantly the sensitivity of both the runoff and the evapotranspiration to

increments in precipitation.

For the MB, the PCR associated with the scenario CPC-U0 (Table 5) is rather similar to that

relative to the CPC-U1 and CPC-U2, highlighting the negligible contribution of land use

changes to the alterations in the annual runoff with respect to the positive climate trend

application; this is also evident from the comparison of the blue box-plots in Fig. 6b, where

no significative differences among the scenarios CPC-U0, CPC-U1 and CPC-U2 can be noticed

in the mean, median and IQR values. Also with regard to the induced increments in the annual

evapotranspiration, the positive climate changes seem to have a predominant role, even if, in

this case, the impact of land use evolution from U0 to U2, seems to be more significative.

When “positive” climate schemes (CPi) are considered, the simultaneous application of

32
changes in climate and land use slightly smoothes the effects on annual evapotranspiration

with respect to the separate application of the two perturbations.

At the SB (Fig. 6c and 6d), the coupled application of the land use and climate changes for

the case CPA-U2, and, in less measure, also for the CPC-U2, again softens the effects of the

two trends singularly considered. On the contrary, for the scenarios CPB-U2 and CPD-U2, the

combined application of the two trends slightly exacerbates the effects, especially on the

annual runoff. This could be related to the fact that, differently from the climatic schemes of

type A and C, the mean rainfall frequency for the schemes B and D is unaltered or reduced

with respect to the Baseline and the mean rainfall intensity is consistently higher. This aspect

strengthens the importance of paying attention to the rainfall events characterization in studies

focusing on the coupled effects of climate changes and urbanization; in particular, the

simultaneous occurrence of an increment in both the impervious areas and the rainfall events

intensity (e.g., CPD-U2) would imply consequences on the runoff regime more relevant than

those computable by summing the effects of the two perturbations separately applied, and, at

the same time, more relevant than those relative to a climate scheme with the same MAP and

rainfall events less intense and more frequent (e.g., CPA-U2). Actually, as it can be noticed

from Figs. 6c, and 6d, despite the scenarios CPA-U2 and CPD-U2 are characterized also by the

same MAE, the former shows an annual runoff, on average, about 60 mm/yr lower than that

relative to the latter since a more consistent fraction of rainfall is retained by the soil and/or

lost as deep percolation.

When urbanization and climate changes are simultaneously applied, the influence of the

spatial scale on the induced hydrological changes appears contrasting depending on the types

of climate perturbations considered. When positive climate trends are considered (CPC-U2),

the alterations in both the runoff and evapotranspiration generation with respect to the current

scenario at the MB are less marked than the corresponding modifications at the SB,

33
demonstrating again that larger basins may act as a sort of low-pass filter, with the higher

spatial variability of topography, vegetation and geology characteristics that may attenuate the

effects of the two perturbations on the hydrological response of the basins. When negative

climate trends are considered (CNC-U2), the percent variation in MAE with respect to the

current scenario resulting at the MB (+4.1%) is still lower (about half) than that at the SB,

while the percent variation in MAR is considerably higher at the MB (-45.7% at the SB versus

-56.6% at the MB). This behavior could be related to the considered percentage increment of

urban areas that is for the SB higher than for the MB (Table 3); thus, the compensation

between the effects due to the rainfall reduction and the increase in the degree of

imperviousness of the basin on runoff production could be more accentuated at the SB.

5.2 Potential alterations on the flow duration curve

Flow duration curves (FDCs), describing a basin attitude to provide flows of various

magnitudes, are widely used to summarize the basin scale streamflow regime and the

temporal runoff variability, also in problematic applications such as under climate change

conditions (e.g., Pumo et al., 2014 and 2016b).

The FDCs of daily runoff, computed from the simulated time-series for all the considered

scenarios, are here analyzed and compared. The curves are shown, as semilog-plots, in Fig. 7,

using different colors for the various scenarios; in particular, left panels (Figs. 7a and 7c) refer

to the comparison between scenarios characterized by the Baseline and the CNi climate

schemes, while right panels (Figs. 7b and 7d) refer to the analogous comparison between

scenarios considering the Baseline and the CPi. A double representation is provided for each

FDC: the part of the curve with runoff values below 50 mm (middle part and lower tail of the

FDC), including all the most recurrent values, is represented in the main graph, while a zoom

on the highest and rarest (exceedance frequency below 0.002) runoff values (upper tail of the

FDC) is reported in an inset graph.

34
 As for the analysis at the annual scale, the analysis of daily runoff regime highlights a clear

predominance of climatic factors of change with respect to the urbanization, in altering the

basin hydrological response. The application of a negative trend in MAP (CNi climate

schemes) seems to have a relevant impact mainly on the lower and more frequent runoff

values, with a marked downshift of the FDCs (Figs. 7a and 7c), while a positive trend on

MAP (CPi climate schemes) induces consistent effects mainly on the highest and rarest runoff

values (insets in Figs. 7b and 7d), with a significative up-shift of the upper tail of FDCs.

The introduction of CNi schemes leads to a clear change on the hydrological regime that,

for the analyzed basins, from “perennial” (flow conditions over almost all the year) becomes

“intermittent”; a consistent increase in the percentage of days of the year with null runoff can

be noticed, especially for the SB and when rainfall events are much more intense and less

frequent (schemes of type D). For the MB and for all the considered land use maps (Fig. 7a),

the percentage of null runoff passes from about the 0.02% (Baseline), that essentially means

absence of null daily runoff in a year, to about the 10% (CNC), corresponding to almost 40 dry

days per year, while for the SB (Fig. 7c) it passes from the 0.64% (ca. 2 days per year) to a

percentage ranging between the 16.8% (i.e., ca. 61 dry days per year for the CNB-U0) and the

29.4% (i.e., ca. 107 dry days per year for the CND-U0). This means that, in this case there is a

spatial scale effect in the change of the hydrological regime determined by the fact that, in the

MB, the contribution of the slow and sub-superficial runoff components is greater than that

relative to the superficial component, which is more sensitive to climate alterations (as it will

be discussed also at Sect. 5.3).

With regard to the CPi schemes, the percentage of dry days for year is almost null for all

the cases (Figs. 7b and 7d), with the only exception of the CPB-U0 and CPB-U2 scenarios for

the SB, where the percentage (i.e., ca. 5 dry days for year) is about doubled with respect to the

current scenario. For all the considered scenarios and both the basins, the percentage of dry
35
days remains essentially unaltered passing from U0 to U2, resulting then insensitive to the land

use changes. As widely discussed in the previous sections, this is due to the predominant

effect of the considered climate alterations compared to the effects of land-use changes.

Figure 7. Flow duration curves (FDCs) of daily runoff (mm) at the MB, Baron Fork at Eldon (upper panels: 7a

and 7b), and at the SB, Peacheater Creek at Christie (lower panels: 7c and 7d). All graphs are in semilog-plot.

Main graphs show only the curve for runoff values below 50 mm, while the inset figures show the curve only for

exceedance frequencies below 0.002.

The impact of land use alterations on daily runoff, even if marginal with respect to that

induced by climate change, alters the runoff frequency distribution proportionally to the

considered increments in the urban areas fraction and shows a similar behavior for all the

considered climate schemes; in particular, the FDCs under altered land use conditions tend to

be lightly steeper (Fig. 7). The lower tail of the FDCs, after urbanization changes, results

slightly downshifted with respect to the current condition, denoting, at equal frequency, a

reduction in the associated runoff values and, at equal runoff values, a reduction in the

associated exceedance frequency. On the contrary, great part of the middle-curves and the

upper tail of all the FDCs result slightly up-shifted after urban areas growth (i.e., U1 and U2).

36
 Differently from the analysis at the annual scale (e.g., Fig. 6b), when finer time-scale

resolutions (i.e., daily) are considered, the effects on runoff due to the consideration of

different criteria for the urbanization process can be noticed. As it can be observed from the

comparison between the FDCs under the Baseline-U2 and Baseline-R in Figs. 7a and 7b, the

consideration of a random criterion for urban expansion, rather than the rule-based criterion,

slightly emphasizes the effects of the urbanization, with a light lowering of the frequencies

related to the lowest runoff values (i.e., values below ca. 1 mm/day), while the highest and

rarest runoff values (values that are currently overcome for only the 10% of the year) became

slightly more recurrent.

5.3 Changes in runoff components partitioning

This section analyzes potential changes in the composition of the total runoff through the

study of the following four runoff components time series and their spatial distribution: i)

infiltration-excess runoff (Hsrf); ii) saturation-excess runoff (Sbsrf); iii) perched return flow

(Psrf); iv) groundwater exfiltration (GWsrf).

5.3.1 Spatial analysis of the produced runoff components

The generation of the runoff mechanisms across the basins is mainly controlled by the

interaction between topography and soil texture characteristics (i.e., hydraulic and

hydrological soil properties), which vary in space, and by the way how these properties

interact with the climatic forcing.

For the sake of the processes understanding, Fig. 8 shows the spatial distributions of three

characteristics (columns) of the three main runoff components, i.e., Hsrf, Sbsrf, GWsrf (rows),

for the reference scenario (Baseline-U0) at the SB. The first column depicts the average rate

(mm/hr), estimated over the effective occurrence, of each runoff components (HRt, SbRt, and

GWRt) together with the scatter-plots of the same variable vs. the voronoi cell slope; the

second column depicts the relative occurrence (%) of each runoff mechanism in each voronoi

37
cell over the entire simulation (HOccr, SbOccr, and GWOccr) together with the scatter-plots

runoff component rate vs. occurrence; and, finally, the third column shows the mean annual

value (mm/year) of each runoff component (Hsrf, Sbsrf, and GWsrf, respectively) produced

by each voronoi cell, obtained as combination of the first two variables.

Figure 8. Spatial distributions of the average rate of the three main runoff components (HRt, SbRt, GWRt)

together with the scatter-plot of the same variable vs. the voronois cell slope (first column); the relative

occurrence of the three components over the entire simulation (HOccr, SbOccr, GWOccr) together with the

scatter-plot of rate vs. occurrence (second column); mean annual value of each runoff component (Hsrf, Sbsrf,

GWsrf) produced by each voronoi cell (third column). Different colors within all the scatter-plots refer to

different soil-vegetation types (forest, grassland, urban – Table 4)

The infiltration excess runoff (Hsrf) depends on water accumulation in the unsaturated

zone in conditions of low vertical and lateral redistribution rates and, thus, it occurs when the

infiltration and redistribution rates of the top saturated layer are lower than rainfall intensity.

38
Therefore, this type of contribution is generally relevant on areas at low rate of hydraulic

conductivity, while in conductive soils, extremely intense rainfall events are necessary to

produce infiltration excess runoff. For this reason, its rate, HRt, is particularly high across the

forested and gentle areas of the SB (top-left graph of Fig. 8) while its occurrence, HOccr, is

very low in the same areas (top-middle graph in Fig. 8) and more frequent in the grassland

and urban areas, where the hydraulic conductivity rate is lower (Table 4). As a result of the

combination of these two processes, the total Hsrf component, at the annual scale, is mainly

generated in the grassland, urban, and gentle areas (top-right graph in Fig. 8).

Saturation excess (Sbsrf) and groundwater exfiltration runoff (GWsrf) are produced only in

cells where full saturation of the soil column is reached (e.g., groundwater discharge regions,

flat areas, perennial stream network and its floodplain), resulting then more related to the

topographic properties of the basin. In fact, the spatial patterns of the corresponding runoff

rate, occurrence, and specific volume (second and third rows in Fig. 8) clearly follow the

slope distribution over the basin, with high rates and occurrences (and, consequently, high

specific volume) in flat areas and along the stream networks. Although the similar spatial

patterns, the scatter-plots of rate vs. occurrence indicate different dynamics of generation for

the two runoff components; specifically, while the groundwater exfiltration runoff is almost

perennial in the stream network areas (relative occurrence reaches almost 100%) at low rate,

the saturation excess occurs much less frequently but at higher rates.

The spatial analysis of the variations, singularly induced by land use and climate changes,

in the mean behavior of the SB in terms of production of such runoff components (Hsrf, Sbsrf,

GWsrf) is synthesized in Fig. 9. This last shows the spatial distribution of the percent

variation with respect to current scenario (Baseline-U0) of the different runoff components at

any voronoi cell under the scenarios Baseline-U2 (first column), CNc-U0 (second column) and

CPc-U0 (third column).

39
 As expected, the alteration in land use (first column in Fig. 9) leads to an increase of Hsrf

(even more than 95%) in the areas where the expansion of urbanized areas occurs (top-left

graph in Fig. 9), i.e., in the northeastern zone of the basin (Fig. 4) characterized by flat areas.

Conversely, about in the same areas, a decrease in the slow runoff components (Sbsrf, GWsrf)

is observed; significant variations of GWsrf occur along the main stream network.

Figure 9. Maps of percent variation of the three main runoff components (Hsrf, Sbsrf, GWsrf) with respect to

current scenario Baseline-U0 (reference map), for the SB and for the scenarios: Baseline-U2 (first column), CNc-

U0 (second column) and CPc-U0 (third column).

The application of negative climatic trend (second column in Fig. 9) determines a decrease

in Hsrf (even by the 100%) mainly in the forested areas (top-middle graph in Fig. 9). In fact,

as discussed before, the production of this component in conductive soils is strictly related to

40
the rainfall properties, which, in this case, are characterized by a decrease of both rainfall

intensity and frequency.

Conversely, the decrease in the slow runoff components (Sbsrf and GWsrf) is observed in

the flat areas and in the stream network. Similar dynamics are observed under the CPc-U0

scenario (third column in Fig. 9), but in the opposite direction of change. In fact, the increase

in precipitation intensity and frequency determines an increase in Hsrf. In this case, the

infiltration-excess component is generated also across areas that were characterized by a low

occurrence of this type of mechanism under the Baseline (Fig. 8), resulting in an overall

increase of this component (even more than 250%), especially in the steep zones of the

forested areas. Similarly, also the other runoff components (i.e., Sbsrf and GWsrf) increase

significantly, especially along the stream network and the flat areas.

5.3.2 Alterations in the mean composition of the basin annual runoff

Figure 10 shows the average relative contribution of the different components (primary

axes) to the total mean annual runoff (secondary axes) produced by the MB (Fig. 10a) and SB

(Fig. 10b) basins across the various scenarios. The analysis of the runoff composition at the

current scenario shows that runoff is mainly generated by the Hsrf component (ca. 40% and

45% for the MB and the SB, respectively), followed by Sbsrf (30% and 23%, respectively) and

GWsrf (ca. 22% for both the basins); the lowest contribution is provided from the perched

return flow, Psrf (below the 10% for both the basins). Under the Baseline, the rule-based

criterion for urban expansion, determines a slight increase in the average total runoff, as well

as a change in the runoff compositions; specifically, the Hsrf component contributes even

more to the total runoff at expense of Sbsrf and, in a less rate, of the GWsrf component. This

is particularly evident at the SB, where the relative weight of Hsrf increases up to about the

61% (U2), while the relative weight of the Sbsrf component is almost halved.

41
(a)

(b)

Figure 10. Average relative contributions of the Hsrf (infiltration-excess), Sbsrf (saturation-excess), Psrf

(perched return flow) and GWsrf (groundwater exfiltration) runoff components (primary axes) to the total mean

annual runoff across the different scenarios for the main basin (a) and the sub-basin (b). The total mean annual

runoff (mm/year) is represented in the secondary axes.

An increase in Hsrf can be ascribed to the sole consideration of the urbanization process

(Fig. 10) and it can be explained by an expansion of the areas where the infiltration excess is

most recurrent, due to the low conductivity properties (Fig. 8) of urban areas. Because the

42
urbanization verifies mainly in flat areas, the relative weight of Hsrf increases at expense of

Sbsrf, while the decrease of the GWsrf component is justified by a lower groundwater

recharge. Comparing the alterations, with respect to the current scenario, due to the scenarios

Baseline-U2 and Baseline-R at the MB (Fig. 10a), significative differences can be noticed in

the runoff components partition, highlighting the importance of the urban areas spatial

distribution with this regard. When a random criterion for urban expansion is considered,

urbanization impact is further emphasized, with a more marked increase in the relative weight

of the Hsrf and a reduction in the relative weight of the Psrf and GWsrf components. This

behavior is related to the fact that, under the Baseline-U2, the growth of urban areas occurs

mainly at the expense of grassland areas (Fig. 4), where runoff is mainly generated by the

Hsrf component, as specified in the Sect. 5.3.1 (top-right graph in Fig. 8). Conversely, under

the Baseline-R, the urbanization is randomly distributed over the SB (Fig. 4) leading to higher

percentages of grassland area, as compared to the Baseline-U2, and then preserving higher

values of Hsrf. Such a difference highlights how the urban growth pattern can, somehow,

affect the hydrological response of a basin.

The application of only CNi schemes under the U0 leads to very deep alterations in the

runoff composition for all the scenarios and for both the basins (Fig. 10). In particular, the

relative contribution of Hsrf becomes strongly dominant (in the order of the 80-85%, except

for the case CNB-U0 at the SB where it reaches about the 70%) at expense of the relative

weights of all the other components, especially, Sbsrf and GWsrf that decrease considerably

with respect to the Baseline-U0.

The analysis at the SB (Fig. 10b) also highlights the role of the rainfall characterization in

altering the runoff composition; more specifically, at equal MAP, the infiltration-excess

mechanism of runoff generation appears strongly favored by the increase in rainfall intensity.

This is explained by the fact that extremely intense rainstorms produce infiltration excess

43
runoff on cells with high hydraulic conductivity, as the forested areas in this application (Fig.

8 and Table 3), which is the most widespread soil class within the basin (Fig. 4).

Under unaltered land use map, less intense and more frequent rainfall events (i.e., CNB-U0)

produce a slow runoff component (given by the sum of Psrf and GWsrf) that, in relative

terms, weights on the total runoff much more (more than two times) than in the case

characterized by the highest rainfall intensity and lowest frequency (i.e., CND-U0), while the

relative weight of Sbsrf for the CNB-U0 is almost three times that for the CND-U0. This is due

to the fact that less intense and more frequent rainfall events allow for a more frequent

recharge of the groundwater and saturation of the subsurface layers. In absolute terms, the

significative difference in MAR between the two scenarios is almost entirely due to a higher

production of the fastest runoff component, i.e., Hsrf, in the case CND-U0 with respect to the

CNB-U0, while the contributions (in absolute value, i.e., mm/yr) of the other components to

the MAR are almost the same. When also urbanization trends are applied (under the CNi

schemes), the aforementioned behavior is further exacerbated (Fig. 10), in a proportional

manner with respect to the considered trend in urbanization (Fig. 10a), even if the considered

climate perturbations still maintain a predominant role in altering the runoff composition.

Positive trends in MAP (i.e., CPi schemes), under unaltered land-use map (i.e., the U0),

induce different alterations on runoff component repartition, depending on the considered

rainfall event characterization. When MAP increment is due to an equal percent increment in

rainfall intensity and frequency (i.e., the CPC), runoff partition among the various components

remains almost unaltered for both the basins (Fig. 10), and, thus, the increment in MAR is the

result of a proportional increment of all the runoff components. When MAP increase is

obtained exclusively through an increment of rainfall frequency (i.e., the CPA), the relative

importance of the Sbsrf, Psrf and GWsrf components increases, while the relative weight of

Hsrf on the total runoff reduces (Fig. 10b). In absolute term, the increase of MAR at the SB

44
under the CPA-U0 scenario (almost 200 mm/yr) is almost entirely due to an increase in the

slow runoff components. Finally, when MAP increment is generated through a relevant

increment of rainfall intensity, with unaltered (CPB) or reduced (CPD) rainfall frequency, the

relative weight of the Hsrf component increases, about from the 44% to the 52% at the SB, to

the detriment of the relative contributions of the Sbsrf and GWsrf components, while the

relative weight of Psrf is almost unaltered. The mechanisms of these processes are, again,

explained by the dynamics of the runoff components generation, which have been described

in Fig. 8. Specifically, the increase of the relative weight of the fast component, Hsrf, is

related to the rainfall intensity, given that most of the basin is characterized by a conductive

soil class; conversely, the increase of the slow runoff components, i.e., Sbsrf and GWsrf, is

mainly induced by an increase in rainfall frequency which allows the soil to get saturated

more frequently as well as to recharge the groundwater recharge. When these climate trends

(i.e., CPi schemes) are coupled with urbanization, the increment in the relative weight of all

the runoff components related to a saturation from below mechanism (i.e., Sbsrf, Psrf and

GWsrf) due to the climate perturbations under the CPA and CPC is completely masked by the

corresponding reduction due to the urbanization (Fig. 10b), which is prevalent. On the

contrary, the alterations due to the consideration of the other two climate schemes (i.e., CPB

and CPD) are strongly emphasized by the increment of the urban fraction within the basin.

The analysis on the impact of the spatial scale on the runoff components repartition has

confirmed the results previously obtained with regard to the annual water balance

components, also in accordance with other findings in literature (e.g., Amorocho, 1961;

Yildiz and Barros, 2009); as the basin area increases, the modifications on runoff components

repartition induced by changes in climate and land use are smoothed. The results relative to

the only application of trend in urbanization (under the Baseline) show that the relative

weights of all the runoff components are subjected to variations at the SB higher than at the

45
MB, especially with regard to Hsrf, whose relative weight increases by the 16% at the SB

versus the 10% at the MB. The same behavior can be observed comparing the modifications,

with respect to the current scenario, induced at the SB and the MB by the scenario CPC-U2.

These results could be also explained by the fact that the SB is characterized by a higher

increase of urbanized areas.

6 Discussion

Similarly to other works in literature (see Table 1), this study uses different scenarios,

obtained from the combination of synthetic climate schemes and land use maps, as inputs to a

hydrological model, thereby enabling an assessment of alterations in various aspects

characterizing the basin-scale hydrological response. Two of the most recurrent causes of

hydrological changes have been investigated, comparing the effects induced by the separate

and combined application of “natural-anthropic” perturbations (climate changes) and purely

“anthropic” perturbations (urbanization). For the specific purpose of investigating the impacts

of land conversion, from natural to anthropic conditions, in this study we explicitly neglect

“natural” land cover changes, considering only the urbanization phenomenon resulting by the

human induced transformation of previously rural areas into more impervious areas (e.g.,

parking lots, roadways, lawns, rooftops, etc).

Higher mean annual rates for both evapotranspiration and runoff can be associated to the

increase of impervious areas. A possible explanation of this behavior is that urbanization

inhibits the process of water infiltration into the soil, causing a consequent raise of both water

accumulation in the upper soil depths and surface runoff generation at the expense of the soil

moisture at deeper depths and groundwater recharge; this implies more water availability for

the evapotranspiration process from the soil surface as well as an increase in the surface

46
runoff with an evident modification of the basin efficiency in transforming rainfall into runoff

(i.e., increase of annual runoff coefficients).

Climate alterations have highlighted a relative weight in altering all the analyzed

hydrological indicators higher than urbanization. The results have, in fact, demonstrated that

the application of only climatic trends implies modifications in the annual water balance

components more important than those consequent to the application of only urbanization

trends, in accordance, for instance, with the results of the retrospective analysis conducted by

Chen et al., (2005) for the Suomo River Basin (China). The consideration of the urbanization

as the sole factor of change has led to a percent increment in both the mean annual runoff and

evapotranspiration that is one order of measure lower than that induced by the consideration

of only climatic factors of change.

The sum of the effects due to the two types of perturbation singularly applied has been

rather different from the effects evaluated when they were applied in coupled manner,

highlighting a strong not-linearity in the basin response to the change factors. When the

urbanization process is considered under climate schemes with a reduction in precipitation, it

tends to smooth the effects of climate change on the annual-scale water balance components

and the runoff regime, while, on the contrary, an exacerbation of the effects can be noticed

when urban areas fraction increases under climate schemes with an increase in precipitation.

The results discussed in Sect.5.1 have shown how an increase of urbanization implies, on

average, a slight increase in both evapotranspiration and runoff at the annual scale, while the

coupled application of the positive trend on temperature and the negative trend on

precipitation (i.e., climate scheme CNi) implies a reduction in evapotranspiration, proportional

to the imposed reduction in rainfall frequency, and, more markedly, in runoff. The two types

of perturbations have contrasting effects, and, in fact, when they are applied simultaneously,

the alterations induced by negative climate changes on the annual-scale water balance

47
components are partially smoothed by the effects due to the increase in the impervious areas

fraction within the basin. The results in Table 5 on the sensitivity of runoff to both the

considered factors of change also confirmed some of the evidences from Bronstert et al.

(2002) and Wang and Hejazi (2011), according to which the influence of climate change and

urbanization is higher under drier conditions.

The adopted land use change model allowed for evaluating an aspect scarcely investigated

in the past literature, that is the importance of different detail levels in the modeling of the

spatial distribution of built-up areas for hydrological applications. The consideration of a rule-

based criterion to drive the urban expansion process, rather than the random criterion, appears

not particularly significative in terms of annual water balance components, especially with

regard to the evapotranspiration, while, it tend to be more noticeable when a finer time-scale

resolution (i.e., daily or hourly) is considered, with some clear differences in terms of daily

runoff FDC and runoff components partitioning. Actually, the importance of the urbanization

spatial pattern in affecting storm-event hydrological response of a basin was also recognized

from the analysis of historical time-series by Yang et al. (2013).

The runoff composition seems to be deeply affected by the two considered perturbations,

coherently with other findings in literature (e.g., Todd et al., 2007; Tavakoli et al., 2014). The

application of a negative trend in precipitation and/or of an increase in the fraction of urban

areas led to an increase in the relative contribution of the fastest runoff component, generated

by infiltration excess, mainly at expense of the runoff components generated by saturation

excess and groundwater exfiltration. Positive trends in precipitation affected much less the

runoff components repartition, with the corresponding alterations totally masked or, even

outclassed, by the opposite effects due to an increase in the fraction of urban areas.

Two aspects revealed particularly important in determining changes in runoff composition:

the considered urban areas spatial distribution and the rainfall characterization. The first

48
aspect is related to the crucial role that topography (e.g., mean slope) and soil type properties

(e.g., hydraulic conductivity) may have in controlling the different mechanisms of runoff

generation. With regard to the latter aspect, the results have confirmed that the increase in

frequency of rainstorm facilitates the saturation of the soil column and, thus, the production of

runoff components related to the “saturation from below” mechanism (i.e., saturation-excess,

perched return flow, groundwater exfiltration). Whereas, the increase in rainfall intensity

facilitates Hortonian runoff generation mechanisms, increasing the relative contribution of the

corresponding fast runoff component.

In some cases, the modifications in the rainfall characteristics may have a predominant role

with respect to the modifications in the mean annual rainfall total; for instance, no

significative differences in the mean annual evapotranspiration can be noticed between the

current scenarios and the CNB-U0 (Figure 6c), probably because the reduced rainfall intensity

facilitates the rainfall infiltration process, leading to soil moisture conditions, primary water

source for the evapotranspiration process, similar to that resulting for the Baseline and

partially masking the effects on evapotranspiration arising from a lower MAP.

The analyses of this study have also confirmed that, as it was often highlighted in other

past studies (e.g., Todd et al., 2007; Cuo et al., 2009; Wang and Hejazi, 2011), the processes

governing rainfall-runoff response can significantly change with spatial scale; as the basin

area increases, the modifications on both the total runoff and the singular runoff components

due to changes in climate and/or land use could be less evident than those induced by the

same perturbations on smaller basins.

7 Conclusion

This paper contributed to an increase in the awareness on the complex interactions between

land systems and climate, through the assessment of their potential impacts on hydrology and

water resources under different scenarios. In particular, the study, which uses an advanced

49
hydrological model as a “virtual laboratory”, explored some of the hydrological changes that

could be induced by a wide range of extreme climate and urbanization trends, projected in

different region of the Earth.

Although we simulated a consistent number of potential future conditions (i.e., 21 different

scenarios), they represent only a very little ensemble of the combinations between future

climate schemes and land use maps that is possible to hypothesize considering only the “very

likely” projections in various regions of the globe. Moreover, the investigated indicators of

hydrological changes are only some of the most representative in literature, and some other

important aspects, such as the possible effects on runoff extremes, have been totally neglected

in this study and represent further aims for future developments of the presented framework.

Despite the aforementioned limitations, the results here obtained could be extended, with

the necessary precautions, to most of the possible territorial contexts over the world.

Moreover, this study has proposed a rather simple modeling framework that can be used as a

benchmark for similar hydrological applications and easily transferred to any other territorial

context, resulting suitable also for backward analyses or future projections in real cases.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to the numerous scientists who provided additional information from their studies,

and the three anonymous reviewers, editor-in-chief and associate editor for comments that

helped to improve our paper.

50
References

Amorocho, J., 1961. Discussion on predicting storm runoff on small experimental watershed

by N.E. Minshall. J. Hydraulics Div. Am. Soc. Civ. Eng. 87(HY2):185-191

Arnone, E., Pumo, D., Viola, F., Noto, L. V., and La Loggia, G., 2013. Rainfall statistics

changes in Sicily, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 17, 2449-2458, 10.5194/hess-17-2449-2013

Arnone, E., Caracciolo, D., Noto, L.V., Preti, F., Bras, R.L., 2016. Modeling the hydrological

and mechanical effect of roots on shallow landslides. Water Resources Research, 52(11):

8590-8612; 10.1002/2015WR018227

Berghuijs, W.R., Woods, R.A., Hrachowitz, M., 2014. A precipitation shift from snow

towards rain leads to a decrease in streamflow. Nat. Clim. Change, 4 (7): 583-586

Blenkinsop, S., Chan, S.C., Kendon, E. J., Roberts, N.M., Fowler, H.J., 2015. Temperature

influences on intense UK hourly precipitation and dependency on large-scale circulation.

Environmental Research Letters, 10 (5): 054021, doi:10.1088/1748-9326/10/5/054021

Bras, R.L., 1990. Hydrology: an Introduction to Hydrologic Science, Addison-

Wesley/Longman, Reading, MA/London

Bronstert, A., Niehoff, D., Bürger, G., 2002. Effects of climate and land-use change on storm

runoff generation: present knowledge and modelling capabilities. Hydrol. Process., 16 (2):

509–529 - doi:10.1002/hyp.326

Burn, D.H., Mansour, R., Zhang, K., Whitfield, P.H., 2011. Trends and Variability in Extreme

Rainfall Events in British Columbia, Can. Water Resour. J., 36: 67–82 -

doi:10.4296/cwrj3601067

Caracciolo, D., Arnone, E., Noto, L.V., 2014. Influence of Spatial Precipitation Sampling on

Hydrological Response at Catchment Scale. Journal of Hydrologic Engineering, 19: 544-553 -

doi: 10.1061/(ASCE)HE. 1943-5584.0000829.

51
Ceola, S., A. Montanari, D. Koutsoyannis. 2014. Toward a theoretical framework for

integrated modeling of hydrological change. Water - doi:10.1002/wat2.1038

Chen, J., Li, X. and Zhang, M., 2005. Simulating the impacts of climate variation and land-

cover changes on basin hydrology: a case study of the Suomo Basin. Science in China Series

D: Earth Sciences 48: 1501–509

Cohen, J., 2003. Human population: The next half century. Science, 302, 1172-1175

Cuo, L., Lettenmaier, D.P., Alberti, M. and Richey, J.E., 2009. Effects of a century of land

cover and climate change on the hydrology of the Puget Sound basin. Hydrol. Process. 23:

907–33

Dialynas, Y.G., Bastola, S., Bras, R.L., Marin-Spiotta, E., Silver, W.L., Arnone, E., Noto,

L.V., 2016. Impact of hydrologically driven hillslope erosion and landslide occurrence on soil

organic carbon dynamics in tropical watersheds. Water Resour. Res.,

doi: 10.1002/2016WR018925

Donat, M. G., Lowry, A. L., Alexander, L. V., Ogorman, P. A., and Maher, N., 2016. More

extreme precipitation in the world’s dry and wet regions, Nature Clim. Change, 6, 508-513,

10.1038/nclimate2941

Fatichi, S., Ivanov, V.Y., Caporali, E., 2011. Simulation of future climate scenarios with a

weather generator. Adv. Water Resour., 34 (4): 448-467

Fletcher, T.D., Andrieu, H., Hamel, P., 2013. Understanding, management and modelling of

urban hydrology and its consequences for receiving waters; a state of the art review. Adv.

Water Resour, 51: 261–279.

Francipane, A., V. Y. Ivanov, L. V. Noto, E. Istanbulluoglu, E. Arnone, and R. L. Bras

(2012), tRIBS-Erosion: A parsimonious physically-based model for studying catchment

hydro-geomorphic response, Catena, 92, 216–231, doi:10.1016/j.catena.2011.10.005

52
Francipane, A., S. Fatichi, V. Y. Ivanov, and L. V. Noto (2015), Stochastic assessment of

climate impacts on hydrology and geomorphology of semiarid headwater basins using a

physically based model, J. Geophys. Res. Earth Surf., 120, 507–533,

doi:10.1002/2014JF003232

Gumindoga, W., Rientjes, T., Shekede, M.D., Rwasoke, D.T., Nhapi, I., Haile, A.T., 2014.

Hydrological impacts of urbanization of two catchments in Harare, Zimbabwe. Remote Sens.,

6 12544-12574; doi:10.3390/rs61212544

Hawley, R.J., Bledsoe, B.P., 2011. How do flow peaks and durations change in suburbanizing

semi-arid watersheds? A southern California case study. J. Hydrol. 405, 69–82

Huang, H.J., Cheng, S.J., Wen, J.C., Lee, J.H., 2008. Effect of growing watershed

imperviousness on hydrograph parameters and peak discharge. Hydrol. Process., 22, 2075–

2085

IPCC. Climate change 2013. The physical science basis. Contribution of Working Group I to

the fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge

University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, 2013

Ivanov, V.Y., Vivoni, E.R., Bras, R.L., Entekhabi, D., 2004a. Catchment hydrologic response

with a fully-distributed triangulated irregular network model. Water Resour. Res., 40(11),

W11102

Ivanov, V.Y., Vivoni, E.R., Bras, R.L., Entekhabi, D., 2004b. Preserving high-resolution

surface and rainfall data in operational-scale basin hydrology: a fully-distributed physically-

based approach. J. Hydrol., 298 (1-4): 80-111

Ivanov, V.Y., Bras, R.L., Curtis, D.C., 2007. A weather generator for hydrological, ecological,

and agricultural applications. Water Resour. Res., 43 W10406. doi:10.1029/2006WR005364

53
Jacobson, C.R., 2011. Identification and quantification of the hydrological impacts of

imperviousness in urban catchments: a review. J. Environ. Manage., 92 (6):1438–1448 -

doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2011.01.018

Liuzzo, L., Noto, L, Arnone, E., Caracciolo, D., La Loggia, G. 2015. Modifications in Water

Resources Availability Under Climate Changes: A Case Study in a Sicilian Basin. Water

Resour Manage, 29: 1117

Mascaro, G, Piras, M., Deidda, R., Vivoni, E.R., 2013. Distributed hydrologic modeling of a

sparsely monitored basin in Sardinia, Italy, through hydrometeorological downscaling. HESS,

17 (10): 4143-4158

McVicar, T.R., Roderick, M.L., Donohue, R.J., Li, L.T., Van Niel, T.G., Thomas, A., Grieser,

J., Jhajharia, D., Himri, Y., Mahowald, N.M., Mescherskaya, A.V., Kruger, A.C., Rehman, S.,

and Dinpashoh, Y., 2012. Global review and synthesis of trends in observed terrestrial near-

surface wind speeds: Implications for evaporation. J. Hydrol., 416-417, 182-205.

doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2011.10.024

Montanari, A., Young, G., Savenije, H.H.G., Hughes, D., Wagener, T., Ren, L.L.,

Koutsoyiannis, D., Cudennec, C., Toth, E., Grimaldi, S., et al. "Panta Rhei - Everything

Flows": Change in hydrology and society - The IAHS Scientific Decade 2013–2022.

Hydrological Sciences Journal 2013, 58(6): 1256-1275

Moreno, H.A., Gupta, H.V., White, D.D., Sampson, D.A., 2016. Modeling the distributed

effects of forest thinning on the long-term water balance and streamflow extremes for a semi-

arid basin in the southwestern US. HESS, 20 (3): 1241-1267

Nazif, S., Tavakolifar, H., Eslamian, S., 2017. Climate Change Impact on Urban Water

Deficit, Ch. 5 in Handbook of Drought and Water Scarcity, Vol. 2: Environmental Impacts

and Analysis of Drought and Water Scarcity, Ed. by Eslamian S. and Eslamian F., Francis and

Taylor, CRC Press, USA, 81-106.

54
Noto, L., Ivanov, V., Bras, R., Vivoni, E. 2008. Effects of initialization on response of a fully-

distributed hydrologic model, J. Hydrol., (352): 107-125

Oni, S.K., Futter, M.N., Molot, L.A., Dillon, P.J., Crossman, J., 2014. Uncertainty

assessments and hydrological implications of climate change in two adjacent agricultural

catchments of a rapidly urbanizing watershed. Science of the Total Environment, 473-474:

326-337

Praskievicz, S., and Chang, H., 2009. A review of hydrological modelling of basin-scale

climate change and urban development impacts. Progress in Physical Geography 33(5): 650-

671

Prokop, G., Jobstmann, H., Schonbauer, A., 2011. Overview on best practices for limiting soil

sealing and mitigating its effects in EU-27 (Environment Agency Austria), Technical Report -

2011-50, ISBN: 978-92-79-20669-6, 2011

Prosdocimi, I., Kjeldsen, T.R., Miller, J.D., 2015. Detection and attribution of urbanization

effect on flood extremes using nonstationary flood-frequency models. Water Resour. Res., 51

(6): 4244–4262

Pumo, D., Viola, F., Noto, L.V, 2010. Climate changes’ effects on vegetation water stress in

Mediterranean areas. Ecohydrology, 3:166-176, doi:10.1002/eco.117

Pumo, D., Viola, F., La Loggia, G., Noto, L.V., 2014. Annual flow duration curves

assessment in ephemeral small basins. J. Hydrol., 519 (Part A): 258-270,

doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2014.07.024

Pumo, D., Viola, F., Noto, L.V., 2016a. Generation of natural runoff monthly series at

ungauged sites using a regional regressive model. Water, 8, 209; doi:10.3390/w8050209

Pumo, D., Caracciolo, D., Viola, F., Noto, L.V., 2016b. Climate change effects on the

hydrological regime of small non-perennial river basins. Science of the Total Environment,

542 (Part A): 76-92; doi:10.1016/j.scitoten.2015.10.109

55
Pumo, D., Francipane, A., Lo Conti, F., Arnone, E., Bitonto, P., Viola, F., La Loggia, G.,

Noto, L.V., 2016c. The SESAMO early warning system for rainfall-triggered landslides.

Journal of Hydroinformatics, 18 (2): 256-276; doi: 10.2166/hydro.2015.060

Pumo D., Lo Conti, F., Viola F., Noto L.V., 2017. An automatic tool for reconstructing

monthly time-series of hydro-climatic variables at ungauged basins. Environmental Modelling

& Software, 95: 381-400; http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2017.06.045

Salvadore, E., Bronders, J., Batelaan, O., 2015. Hydrological modelling of urbanized

catchments: a review and future directions. J. Hydrol., 529 (Part 1): 62–81

doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2015.06.028

Simmons, D.L., Reynolds, R.J., 1982. Effects of urbanization on base flow of selected south-

shore streams, Long Island, New York. J. Am. Water Resour. Assoc. 18, 797–805

Stahl, K., Hisdal, H., Hannaford, J., Tallaksen, L.M., Van Lanen, H.A.J., Sauquet, E., Demuth,

S., Fendekova, M., J́odar, J., 2010. Streamflow trends in Europe: Evidence from a dataset of

near-natural catchments. Hydrol. Eart Syst. Sci., 14 (12): 2367-2382

Subedi, P., Subedi, K., Thapa, B., 2013. Application of a Hybrid Cellular Automaton –

Markov (CA – MARKOV), Model in Land – Use Change Prediction: A Case Study of Saddle

Creek Drainage Basin, Florida, Applied ecology and environmental sciences, 2013, 1 (6):

126-132

Tavakoli, M., De Smedt, F., Vansteenkiste, T., Willems, P., 2014. Impact of climate change

and urban development on extreme flows in the Grote Nete watershed, Belgium. Nat Hazards

(2014) 71: 2127. doi:10.1007/s11069-013-1001-7

Todd , C.E.D., Goss , A.M., Tripathy, D., Harbor, J.M., 2007. The Effects of Landscape

Transformation in a Changing Climate on Local Water Resources. Physical Geography, 28

(1): 21-36 – doi:10.2747/0272-3646.28.1.21

56
UN, 2008. United Nations expert group meeting on Population Distribution, Urbanization,

Internal Migration and Development. United Nations Population Division.

<http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/ documents/2529P01_UNPopDiv.pdf>

Viola, F., Francipane, A., Caracciolo, D., Pumo, D., La Loggia, G., Noto, L.V., 2016: Co-

evolution of hydrological components under climate change scenarios in Mediterranean area.

Science of the Total Environment, 544: 515-524 - doi:10.1016/j.scitoten.2015.12.004

Viola F., Caracciolo D., Forestieri, A., Pumo D., Noto L.V., 2017. Annual runoff assessment

in arid and semiarid Mediterranean watersheds under the Budyko’s framework. Hydrol.

Process., 31: 1876-1888; https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.11145

Vivoni, E.R., Ivanov, V.Y., Bras, R.L., Entekhabi, D., 2005. On the effects of triangulated

terrain resolution on distributed hydrologic model response. Hydrol. Process., 19 (11): 2101-

2122

Wang, D., and Hejazi. M., 2011. Quantifying the relative contribution of the climate and

direct human impacts on mean annual streamflow in the contiguous United States. Water

Resour. Res., 47 (10): 1–16 - doi:10.1029/2010WR010283

Wang, D., and Alimohammadi, N., 2012. Responses of annual runoff, evaporation, and

storage change to climate variability at the watershed scale. Water Resour. Res., 48:W05546 -

doi:10.1029/2011WR011444

Ward, P.J., Renssen, H., Aerts, J.C.J.H., van Balen, R.T., Vandenberghe, J., 2008. Strong

increases in flood frequency and discharge of the River Meuse over the late Holocene:

impacts of long-term anthropogenic land use change and climate variability. Hydrol. Earth

Syst. Sci., 12:159-175 - doi:10.5194/hess-12-159-2008

Wasko, C., Sharma, A., 2015. Steeper temporal distribution of rain intensity at higher

temperatures within Australian storms, Nat Geosci, 8(7), 527-529, doi:10.1038/ngeo2456.

Wasko, C., Sharma, A., 2017. Continuous rainfall generation for a warmer climate using

57
observed temperature sensitivities, J. Hydrol., 544: 575-590,

doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2016.12.002.

Westra, S., Flower, H.J., Evans, J.P., Alexander, L.V., Berg, P., Johnson, F., Kendon, E.J.,

Lendrink, G., Roberts, N.M., 2014. Future changes to the intensity and frequency of short-

duration extreme rainfall, Rev. Geophys., 52, 522-555, doi:10.1002/2014RG000464.

Wild, M., 2009. Global dimming and brightening: a review. Journal of Geophysical Research-

Atmospheres 114: D00D16. DOI: 10.1029/2008JD011470

Willett, K.M., Jones, P.D., Gillett, N.P., Thorne, P.W., 2008. Recent Changes in surface

humidity: development of the HadCRUH dataset. Journal of Climate, 21(20): 5364-5383

Yang, L., Smith, J.A., Wright, D.B., Baeck, M.L., Villarini, G., Tian, F., Hu, H., 2013.

Urbanization and climate change: an examination of nonstationarities in urban flooding. J.

Hydrometeorol., 14 (6):1791–1809 - doi:10.1175/jhm-d-12-095.1

Yildiz, O., Barros, A.P., 2009. Evaluating spatial variability and scale effects on hydrologic

processes in a midsize river basin. Scientific Research and Essay Vol. 4 (4) pp. 217-225

58
Highlights:

1. Hydrological processes are recurrently affected by land-use and climate changes

2. Synthetic experiments with advanced models can explain some feedback mechanisms

3. Alterations in the hydrological response depends on the basins’ spatial scale

4. Urbanization and its spatial evolution affect the runoff components partitioning

5. Urbanization could either smooth or exacerbate climate change effects on runoff

59