Impact of Forecasted Land Use Change on Design Peak Discharge at Watershed and Catchment Scales: Simple Equation to Predict Changes
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 21, Issue 7
Abstract
Common engineering methods for the computation of peak discharge are generally based on the assumption of a stationary watershed. This assumption can potentially lead to inaccurate estimates of peak discharge when considering the lifetime of engineering structures. Future land use change is one of the possible causes of non-stationarity in watershed runoff. This study focuses on a method to integrate the readily available integrated climate and land use scenarios (ICLUS) data sets from the environmental protection agency (EPA), with geographic information system (GIS) and hydrologic modeling. This framework is applied to evaluate the impact of the forecasted land use change on the design peak discharge in the rapidly urbanizing region in Northern Virginia (US) at the watershed (Anderson formula) and catchment [calibrated storm water management model (SWMM)] scales. The results show that the impervious area in the rapidly urbanizing Difficult Run watershed is expected to increase by 99.1% (2070) from the year 2010. This increase could cause the peak discharges to increase by 107.9% (SWMM) and 22.1% (Anderson formula) for the 2-year storm event. Simple and easy-to-use regression equation is presented to estimate the changes in design peak discharges based on drainage area and the change in percent of impervious area for the return periods of 2, 10, 25, 50, and 100 years. The results of this study, in addition to supporting local planning and managing of land development activities, also demonstrate a viable alternative to incorporate the impacts of future land use change on design peak discharge.
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Published In
Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 21 • Issue 7 • July 2016
Copyright
© 2016 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jul 2, 2015
Accepted: Jan 11, 2016
Published online: Mar 21, 2016
Published in print: Jul 1, 2016
Discussion open until: Aug 21, 2016
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