Modeling the hydrological impact of land use change in a dolomitedominated karst system

Amsterdam

2018

267-279

BandaufführungSonderdruck

203902

Hydrological models represent valuable tools to investigate the impacts of land use changes on water resources. Most commonly, distributed, physically-based models are applied for land use change impact studies in hydrology. However, providing a physically-based and detailed description of subsurface flows in karst systems is challenging. Lumped models, in contrast, are easy to implement and widely used in karst hydrological research, albeit not applicable for land use change impact studies. To overcome these limitations, we developed a new semi-distributed model LuKARS (Land use change modeling in KARSt systems) that lumps the predominant hydrotopes (i.e. distinct landscape units characterized by homogeneous hydrological properties as a result of similar land use and soil types) present in a catchment as independent, non-linear units. Flows from each hydrotope represent a specific response of the vadose zone (soil-epikarst-infiltration zone) in a defined recharge area. The saturated zone consists of a single linear storage unit recharged by each hydrotope independently. The main goal of this approach was to investigate land use change impacts in a dolomite karst system exploited for the water supply of the city of Waidhofen a.d. Ybbs (Austria) by changing the area covered by each hydrotope.
Keywords: Karst aquifer ; Karst modeling ; Rainfall-discharge model ; Land use change ; Hydrotope