Joint Sino-German-Project: Impacts of Land Use and Management Practices on Water Resources under Climate Change in the Haihe River Basin, China

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Hans-Georg Frede
• Subject Area: Ecology of Land Use
• Term: from 2010 to 2015
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 188417135

Understanding the impacts of climate change and land use change on the spatio-temporal patterns of the hydro-biogeochemical cycle and water resources is of major importance in highly developed watersheds such as the Haihe River basin. Implementation of Best Management Practices (BMPs) and Policy Approaches in regional land use is essential in order to counteract these impacts on hydrological cycle and water resources. The goals of this joint proposal are 1) to provide estimates of the behaviour of the hydrological cycle and water resources due to climate change and land use change including their uncertainties, and 2) to provide recommendations on BMP and policy approaches in the Haihe River basin for policy makers. We will collect existing meteorological and hydrological data and review current land use management practices and policy approaches. Additional water quality data will be collected in high spatial and temporal resolution. We will setup and calibrate an integrated model ensemble framework that consists of 6 hydrological models of different complexity (CMF, WetSpa, SWIM/SWAT, HBV-N-D, INCA, and LASCAM) which are able to predict water quantity and quality. Observed water quality and other soft data will be used in an a posteriori rejectionist framework to improve process understanding and model structure. Stochastic and structural uncertainty of all models will be estimated to provide reliable ranges of projected global change impact. We will develop and analyze land use change scenarios and Best Management Practices and their impacts on the hydro-biogeochemical cycle under current and climate change conditions. In an integrated approach, we will apply all models to the different change scenarios in order to project and evaluate potential changes of water resources in the catchment area. Finally, recommendations of appropriate land use management practices and policy approaches for the region will be made based on the results of scenario assessments and uncertainty analysis.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: China
• Participating Persons: Professor Dr. Lutz Breuer; Dr. Buda Su