Climate, irrigation, and land cover change explain streamflow trends in countries bordering the northeast Atlantic

Vicente‐Serrano, S.M.; Peña‐Gallardo, M.; Hannaford, J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5256-3310; Murphy, C.; Lorenzo‐Lacruz, J.; Dominguez‐Castro, F.; López‐Moreno, J.I.; Beguería, S.; Noguera, I.; Harrigan, S.; Vidal, J.‐P.. 2019 Climate, irrigation, and land cover change explain streamflow trends in countries bordering the northeast Atlantic. Geophysical Research Letters, 46 (19). 10821-10833. 10.1029/2019GL084084

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2019GL084084

Abstract/Summary

Attribution of trends in streamflow is complex, but essential, in identifying optimal management options for water resources. Disagreement remains on the relative role of climate change and human factors, including water abstractions and land cover change, in driving change in annual streamflow. We construct a very dense network of gauging stations (n = 1,874) from Ireland, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, and Portugal for the period of 1961–2012 to detect and then attribute changes in annual streamflow. Using regression‐based techniques, we show that climate (precipitation and atmospheric evaporative demand) explains many of the observed trends in northwest Europe, while for southwest Europe human disturbances better explain both temporal and spatial trends. For the latter, large increases in irrigated areas, agricultural intensification, and natural revegetation of marginal lands are inferred to be the dominant drivers of decreases in streamflow.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	10.1029/2019GL084084
UKCEH and CEH Sections/Science Areas:	Water Resources (Science Area 2017-)
ISSN:	0094-8276
Additional Keywords:	water resources, precipitation, atmospheric evaporative demand, climate change, drought, land cover
NORA Subject Terms:	Hydrology
Date made live:	30 Oct 2019 11:53 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/525685

Item Type:

Publication - Article

Digital Object Identifier (DOI):

10.1029/2019GL084084

UKCEH and CEH Sections/Science Areas:

Water Resources (Science Area 2017-)

ISSN:

0094-8276

Additional Keywords:

water resources, precipitation, atmospheric evaporative demand, climate change, drought, land cover

NORA Subject Terms:

Hydrology