Author(s)

Robert L. France¹, Peter W. Aitchison²

¹Department of Plant, Food, and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Agriculture, Dalhousie University, Truro, Canada.
²Deceased, Department of Applied Mathematics, 424 University Centre, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada.

Essential for comprehensive and sustainable watershed management is the need to understand interactions between climate change predictions and landuse modifications in concert on ecohydrology. The Atlantic Canada region is expected to experience elevated rainfall due to climate change over the next century. We undertook a predictive modeling study of a watershed in rural Nova Scotia, Thomas Brook, to investigate the potential of riparian reforestation to mitigate the deleterious environmental effects projected to occur from future climate change. A Watershed Analysis Risk Management Framework (WARMF) model was used to predict increased watershed flows using data from projections of the Canadian Regional Climate Change Model. The cold climate-validated WARMF model, which has been used previously to simulate surface flow hydrology in many agricultural and mixed-use landscapes, was found to predict increases of 9% to 25% in flow for the Thomas Brook watershed throughout the rest of the century. A spatial, exposure-based model, used previously in several studies, was adopted for assessing changes in surface water vulnerability based on GIS land-use and landscape topography estimates of nutrient loading, sedimentation, runoff, wetland loss, and stream geomorphology. This model indicated that increases in drainage intensity and drainage sensitivity expected through the climate change WARMF model resulted in greater proportions (from 5% to 27%) of the Thomas Brook watershed area being classified as “High vulnerability” for impacting surface water quality. In terms of land use planning, implementation of runoff and nutrient entrapment techniques through low impact development may need to become increasingly required in order to maintain aquatic health. In terms of land-use management, empirically increasing the width of riparian forest buffers was projected to reduce the predicted areal extent of “High vulnerability”. However, widths of 90 m would be required in order to achieve the same degree of protection that presently exists. Our conclusions are that climate-proofing this watershed through riparian reforestation would come at a cost in terms of the extent of land needed to be set aside by being taken out of agricultural production or commercial forestry.

Climate Change, Riparian Forests, Watershed Flow, Water Vulnerability

France, R. and Aitchison, P. (2019) Climate Change Predictions of Increased Watershed Flow in Atlantic Canada: Implications for Surface Water Vulnerability and Ameliorative Land Use Planning and Management. Journal of Geoscience and Environment Protection, 7, 162-176. doi: 10.4236/gep.2019.79012.