Han et al 2022 JH - Contribution of Urbanisation to Non-stationary River Flow in the UK.pdf (4.51 MB)
Contribution of urbanisation to non-stationary river flow in the UK
journal contribution
posted on 2022-10-14, 15:24 authored by Shasha Han, Louise Slater, Robert WilbyRobert Wilby, Duncan FaulknerUrbanisation is a recognized driver of changes in catchment river flow. However, quantifying the urban influence remains a major challenge, due to the brevity of land cover records and the challenge of isolating this signal from other drivers. This study assesses the contribution of urbanisation to changes in river discharge across different seasons and quantiles (low, median, high, mean, and peak flows). Twelve catchments (21–1660 km2) are selected after screening all gauged UK catchments for minimal human influences other than significant changes in urban land cover. Generalized Additive Models for Location, Scale and Shape (GAMLSS) are developed using long (40–63 years) historical records of precipitation, temperature, urban land cover, and daily river discharge (m3/s). Model coefficients reveal that increased urban area is associated with a rise in discharge across all flow quantiles and seasons, on average, and the contribution of urbanisation to non-stationarity is stronger for low flows and average flows than it is for high flows. For every 1 % increase in urban land cover there is an associated increase in the median of 1.9 % ±2.8 % (1 s.d.) for low flow, 0.9 % ±2.3 % (1 s.d.) for median flow, 0.9 % ±1.9 % (1 s.d.) for mean flow, 1.1 % ±2.0 % (1 s.d.) for high flow, and 0.5 % ±2.2 % (1 s.d.) for seasonal maximum flow across seasons. The urbanisation-flow signal tends to be greatest in catchments with less initial urban extent and low bedrock permeability.
Funding
University of Oxford
History
School
- Social Sciences and Humanities
Department
- Geography and Environment
Published in
Journal of HydrologyVolume
613Issue
2022Publisher
ElsevierVersion
- VoR (Version of Record)
Rights holder
© The Author(s)Publisher statement
This is an Open Access Article. It is published by Elsevier under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY). Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Acceptance date
2022-08-22Publication date
2022-08-28Copyright date
2022ISSN
0022-1694Publisher version
Language
- en
Depositor
Prof Robert Leonard Wilby. Deposit date: 13 October 2022Article number
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