Quantifying the Impacts of Land-Cover Change on the Hydrologic Response to Hurricane Ida in the Lower Mississippi River Basin
Abstract The Lower Mississippi River basin (LMRB) has experienced significant changes in land cover and is one of the most vulnerable regions to hurricanes in the United States. Here, we study the impacts of land-cover change on the hydrologic response to Hurricane Ida in LMRB. By using an integrated surface–subsurface hydrologic model, Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) Land Model coupled with the three-dimensional ParFlow subsurface flow model (ELM-ParFlow), we simulate the effects of land-cover change on the flood volume and peak timing induced by rainfall from Hurricane Ida. The results show that land-cover changes from 1850 to 2015, which resulted in a smoother surface and less vegetation, exacerbated both flood peak time and volume induced by Hurricane Ida. The effects of land-cover changes can be decomposed into two mechanisms: a smoother surface routes more water faster to a watershed outlet and less vegetation allows more water to contribute to surface runoff. By comparing scenarios in which the two mechanisms were isolated, we found that changes in soil moisture due to vegetation cover change have more dominant effects on floods in the southern part and changes in Manning’s coefficient have the largest effect on floods in the northern part of the LMRB. The study provides important insights into the complex relationship between land-use, land-cover, and hydrologic processes in coastal regions.
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- Grant/Contract Number:
- NONE; SC0022211
- OSTI ID:
- 2377232
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Hydrometeorology, Journal Name: Journal of Hydrometeorology Journal Issue: 6 Vol. 25; ISSN 1525-755X
- Publisher:
- American Meteorological SocietyCopyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Data from "The Influence of Climate Change on Flooding and Social Inequalities from Remnants of Hurricane Ida"
Simulating coupled surface–subsurface flows with ParFlow v3.5.0: capabilities, applications, and ongoing development of an open-source, massively parallel, integrated hydrologic model