Water quality evaluation under climate change impacts for Canagagigue Creek watershed in southern Ontario

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Authors
Hu, Rong
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University of Guelph
Abstract

With SDSM downscaling based on historical weather data, this thesis develops the future weather scenario with climate change consideration during 2015-2044, and then uses the scenario as input to the calibrated and validated hydrologic model, SWAT for water quantity and quality analysis, focusing on stream flow, sediment erosion and transportation at a watershed level. This thesis concludes that SDSM is able to simulate the daily historical temperature more efficiently than daily precipitation. Warmer winters and hotter summers may be expected during 2015-2044; higher mean and variance of the amounts of precipitation in summer may be expected without statistic significance; the future stream flows may have longer low flow periods extending from summer to fall, and severe annual water resources deficiency may be highly possible during 2015-2044 due to increased evapotranspiration. As a result, sediment transport capacity of reaches may decrease, and thus sediment deposition may be common phenomena.

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Keywords
climate change, hydrologic model, water quantity, water quality, stream flow, sediment erosion, sediment transportation, watershed, Statistical DownScaling Model, simulation, daily historical temperature, daily precipitation
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