Influence of changes in developed land and precipitation on hydrology of a coastal Texas watershed |
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| Institution: | 1. Transmembrane Protein Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, United States;2. Department of Biology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, United States;3. Department of Pharmacology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, United States;1. Key Laboratory for Genetics and Breeding of Forest Trees and Ornamental Plants of Ministry of Education, National Engineering Laboratory for Tree Breeding, College of Biological Sciences and Biotechnology, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China;2. College of Forestry, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fujian 350002, China;3. Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100093, China;1. Technical University of Ko?ice, Vysoko?kolská 4, 042 00 Ko?ice, Slovakia;2. Slovak Water Management Enterprise, ?umbierska 14, 042 00 Ko?ice, Slovakia;1. Grassland, Soil & Water Research Laboratory, USDA-ARS, 808 East Blackland Road, Temple, TX 76502, USA;2. Blackland Research and Extension Center, Texas A&M University, 720 East Blackland Road, Temple, TX 76502, USA;3. Department of Environmental Science and Technology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA;4. School of Forestry and Wildlife Science, Auburn University, 602 Duncan Dr., Auburn, AL 36849, USA;5. Civil Engineering Department, Canik Basari University, Gürgenyatak köyü 55080 Canik/SAMSUN, Turkey;6. Biosystems Engineering Department, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849, USA |
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| Abstract: | Freshwater inflows, among the most important factors in the overall health of estuarine environments, can be altered both by regional climatic influences as well as changes in land use and land cover. We conduct a scenario analysis to study the individual and combined impacts of changes in land use and land cover and in precipitation patterns in a coastal Texas watershed. The watershed is one of the major sources of freshwater for the estuarine area within the Mission-Aransas National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR). Our scenario analysis suggests that climatic changes are more influential than land changes at the watershed level. However, localized impacts of land change may still be significant on habitats within the NERR site. Results from our watershed-level analysis poorly agree with the recommended freshwater flows established for the region, which deserve further scrutiny. Our findings suggest that geomorphic characteristics of the streams in the watershed need to be taken into consideration in hydrological modeling. Further research on the interactions between land change and hydrological dynamics should also aim for tighter temporal integration of the two sets of processes. |
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| Keywords: | Freshwater inflows Sediment loads Land change Climate Geomorphology NERR |
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