Catchment-scale hydrological response to climate-land-use combined scenarios: A case study for the Kishwaukee River basin, Illinois

This paper examines how the Kishwaukee River basin located between Chicago and Rockford, Illinois, Would respond to various climate-land use combined scenarios. The Hydrological Simulation Program-Fortran was calibrated and repeatedly run with eight climate-land-Use combined scenarios generated from a general circulation model (HadCM3) and a dynamic urban growth model. The climate scenarios were based on two IPCC SRES emission scenarios (A2 and B2) and the land-Use scenarios were based on four economic growth scenarios. The results of the study indicate that total runoff is predicted to decrease noticeably to moderate climate change but shows little sensitivity to land-use change. What is sensitive to land-use change is surface runoff, which is predicted to change from -9.9%. to +29.2% depending on land-use scenarios under the A2 emission scenario. Runoff during summer and the low-flow season is projected to undergo the most severe decrease, Up to 41.4%. under the 132 emission scenario. Finally, it was found that simply combining climate and land-use scenarios is not enough to show the compounding effect of climate change and land-Use change.