Spatio-temporal Analysis on the Combined Impact of Long-term Climate and Landuse Changes on Blue and Green Water Dynamics over the Ohio River Basin

Impacts of climate and landuse change on the overall water availability can be analytically comprehended in terms of long-term trends in surface and subsurface hydrologic fluxes. The surface and subsurface fluxes can be represented in terms of blue water (BW; surface runoff and deep aquifer recharge) and green water (GW; soil water content and actual evapotranspiration). The objective of this study is to present a comprehensive assessment of the spatial and temporal trend of BW and GW under the historical climate and landuse data over the period of 1935 to 2014 in the Ohio River Basin (490,000 km2), and thereby, quantify the relative effects of climate and landuse changes on their long-term dynamics. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) is used to simulate hydrologic fluxes for the Ohio River Basin by first changing both climate and landuse inputs, and then by only changing the climate input keeping landuse constant. The Mann-Kendall and Theil-Sen trend analyses over the whole basin show volumetric increase in both BW and GW. However, the trends reveal a regional pattern, where GW has increased significantly in the upper and lower parts of the basin in response to prominent landuse change. Whereas, BW has increased significantly only in the lower part that can be related to the significant change in precipitation there. The finding that BW is more affected by precipitation while landuse change is more influential in changing GW, is further supported from the BW and GW trend analyses at the individual sub-basin scale. The results from this study help to understand the collective influence of natural and anthropogenic impacts on hydrologic responses in the Ohio River basin, and thereby provide useful information for future water security and planning.