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Is climate or direct human influence responsible for discharge decrease in the tunisian merguellil basin?

Khemiri, Khaoula ; Jebari, Sihem LU ; Berndtsson, Ronny LU orcid and Maalel, Khlifa (2021) In Water 13(19).
Abstract

Climate change and direct anthropogenic impact are recognized as two major factors affecting catchment runoff. This study investigated the separate effect of each of these factors for runoff from the important Tunisian Merguellil catchment. For this purpose, more than forty years of hydrological data were used. The methodology was based on hydrological characterization, NDVI index to monitor land use dynamics, and the Budyko approach to specify origin of change. The results show that hydrological change is much more important upstream than downstream. The last three decades display a 40% reduction in runoff. This is associated with the direct influence of humans, who are responsible for about 78% of the variation in flow. It appears... (More)

Climate change and direct anthropogenic impact are recognized as two major factors affecting catchment runoff. This study investigated the separate effect of each of these factors for runoff from the important Tunisian Merguellil catchment. For this purpose, more than forty years of hydrological data were used. The methodology was based on hydrological characterization, NDVI index to monitor land use dynamics, and the Budyko approach to specify origin of change. The results show that hydrological change is much more important upstream than downstream. The last three decades display a 40% reduction in runoff. This is associated with the direct influence of humans, who are responsible for about 78% of the variation in flow. It appears that climate change contributes to less than about 22%. The combination of increased cultivated land and decreased annual rainfall is the main reason for reduced catchment runoff. Consequently, these effects threaten the sustainable runoff, water in reservoirs, and future water supply in general. Ultimately, the available runoff remains an important parameter and a key indicator to guide the choices of decision-makers and practitioners in current and future climatic conditions. This contributes to supporting sustainable management of remaining water resources.

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Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Anthropogenic impact, Climate change, Runoff trend
in
Water
volume
13
issue
19
article number
2748
publisher
MDPI AG
external identifiers
  • scopus:85116434158
ISSN
2073-4441
DOI
10.3390/w13192748
language
English
LU publication?
yes
additional info
Publisher Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
id
e5931dae-7793-48d6-9f4d-dd09bea36c6c
date added to LUP
2021-10-28 12:54:59
date last changed
2023-10-11 04:07:56
@article{e5931dae-7793-48d6-9f4d-dd09bea36c6c,
  abstract     = {{<p>Climate change and direct anthropogenic impact are recognized as two major factors affecting catchment runoff. This study investigated the separate effect of each of these factors for runoff from the important Tunisian Merguellil catchment. For this purpose, more than forty years of hydrological data were used. The methodology was based on hydrological characterization, NDVI index to monitor land use dynamics, and the Budyko approach to specify origin of change. The results show that hydrological change is much more important upstream than downstream. The last three decades display a 40% reduction in runoff. This is associated with the direct influence of humans, who are responsible for about 78% of the variation in flow. It appears that climate change contributes to less than about 22%. The combination of increased cultivated land and decreased annual rainfall is the main reason for reduced catchment runoff. Consequently, these effects threaten the sustainable runoff, water in reservoirs, and future water supply in general. Ultimately, the available runoff remains an important parameter and a key indicator to guide the choices of decision-makers and practitioners in current and future climatic conditions. This contributes to supporting sustainable management of remaining water resources.</p>}},
  author       = {{Khemiri, Khaoula and Jebari, Sihem and Berndtsson, Ronny and Maalel, Khlifa}},
  issn         = {{2073-4441}},
  keywords     = {{Anthropogenic impact; Climate change; Runoff trend}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{10}},
  number       = {{19}},
  publisher    = {{MDPI AG}},
  series       = {{Water}},
  title        = {{Is climate or direct human influence responsible for discharge decrease in the tunisian merguellil basin?}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/w13192748}},
  doi          = {{10.3390/w13192748}},
  volume       = {{13}},
  year         = {{2021}},
}