Proceedings of the 19th IAHR-APD Congress 2014, Hanoi, Vietnam

ISBN 978604821338-1

IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON WATERSHED HYDROLOGY IN AN AGRICULTURAL TILE-

DRAINED WATERSHED

GOLMAR GOLMOHAMMADI(1), SHIV PRASHER(1) ALI MADANI(1) & RAMESH RUDRA(2)

(1)
Department of Bioresource Engineering, McGill University, Montreal, Canada,
golmar.golmohammadi@mail.mcgill.ca; shiv.prasher@mcgill.ca ; amadani49@gmail.com
(2)
Department of Civil Engineering, University of Guelph, Guelph, Canada,
rrudra@uoguelph.ca

ABSTRACT
The SWATDRAIN model was developed by incorporating the subsurface flow model, DRAINMOD, into a watershed
scale surface flow model, SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment tool), to simulate the hydrology and water quality of
agricultural watersheds. The model is capable of simulating hydrology under different agricultural management and
climate scenarios. As an application of the SWATDRAIN model, the impact of climate change on surface/subsurface
flow was evaluated in the Canagagigue watershed in southern Ontario, Canada. Using the assumption that there has
been no change in land cover and land management, the model was applied in order to simulate annual, seasonal and
monthly changes in surface and subsurface flows at the outlet of the watershed under current and future climate
conditions. The climate scenario under consideration in this study for 2015-2044 was based on CGCM2 for future
climatic simulation.

Keywords: Modeling; Climate Change; Hydrology; Drainage; Cold Climate.

1. INTRODUCTION 2006). The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT)

Changes in climate over a long time or in the short-term
can alter significantly the hydrological behavior of
catchments. Climate change may exert extensive impacts
on the natural hydrologic cycle and natural ecosystems,
particularly in the freshwater supply and in the quality of
water resource systems. Because of climate change, the
patterns of precipitation, evaporation and streamflow
quantity, including surface flow and ground flow, may
result in extensive changes and thus, affect the water
supply from both surface and ground water resources.
The hydrological cycle would be affected if there were
more evaporation and precipitation; however, the extra
precipitation would be unequally distributed around the
globe. Some parts of the world may see significant
reductions in precipitation, or major alterations in the
timing of wet and dry seasons. The changes in
hydrological behavior of watersheds caused by climate
change will also affect nutrient transformation and
transport characteristics (Bouraoui et al., 2004). Since
hydrologic conditions vary from region to region, the
influence of climatic change on local hydrological
processes will differ within localities, even under the
same climate scenarios (Zhang et al., 2007).
Predictions have been made that the Canadian climate, in
general, will become warmer and more variable
(Hengveld, 2000). Some recent examples of the impact of
climate change on water resources include the melting of
the permafrost in northern Quebec, rising sea levels in
Atlantic Canada, the glacial retreat in British Columbia,
and prolonged drought in the Prairies (Mehdi et al.,
model has been applied to several projects in the U.S.
dealing with the impact of climate change on water
supplies and reservoir operations (Arnold and Fohrer
2005), including the regional impact of climate change on
the recharge of ground water in the Ogallala aquifer
(Rosenberg et al., 2000), the impact of climate change on
water yields in a high-elevation, mountainous watershed
(stonefelt et al., 2000), the impact of climate change on the
Missouri River reservoir operation and its water supply
(Hotchkiss et al., 2000), and surface water irrigation and
riparian management influenced by climate change
(Wollmuth and Eheart, 2000). Dayyani et al. (2012)
evaluated the effects of climate change under the
assumption that there would be no changes in land cover
and land management, based on projections from the
Canadian Regional Climate Model (CRCM), on the
hydrology and nitrogen pollution at the outlet of a 24.3
km2 agricultural watershed in Quebec using the DRAIN-
WARMF model.
2. MATERIALS AND METHODS
2.1 Watershed Description
The Grand River basin, located in the heart of the
southwestern Ontario, includes all the land drained by
the Grand River and its tributaries. This large basin of
almost 7,000 square kilometers, located in southern
Ontario, contributes about 10% of the drainage to Lake
Erie. The watershed in this study is the Canagagigue
Creek watershed near Floradle, located in the Grand
River Basin in Southern Ontario. The Canagagigue Creek
has a total drainage area of 143 square kilometers and is a

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minor tributary of the Grand River. It lies between
latitude 4336 N and 4342 N and longitude 8033 W
and 8038 W. This study targeted the upstream portion
of the Canagagigue Creek west, roughly 18 km 2. The
watershed is approximately 19 km long, 10 km wide, and
is roughly triangular. The general slope is less than 1.5%.
The topography of the watershed is flat to gently
undulating with a slight slope towards the outlet in the
south. The average elevation is 417 m. Figure 1 shows the
location of Canagagigue Creek and subwatershed used in
Figure 2. Land use and soil type maps of Canagagigue Creek
this study.

Figure 2 shows the distribution of the main soil types and

land use characteristics of the studied watershed. The
area is composed of about 80% of agricultural land use
and about 10% woodlots (Carey et al., 1983). The rest of
the watershed includes urban areas, fallow land, rivers
and lakes.

2.2 SWATDRAIN Model Development

The DRAINMOD model was incorporated into the

Figure 1. Location of study area in Canagagigue Creek watershed
Daily weather data were obtained from the Fergus
station. A flow gage station (02GA036) is located at the
stream outlet of the west branch of the watershed. The
daily observations of streamflow rate were measured at
this station for the period, 1974-1984.
In addition to the weather data inputs, the SWAT model
requires Digital Elevation Model (DEM), soils, land use
and agricultural management data, if applicable. A DEM
with a 100 m 100 m spatial resolution was obtained
from the Grand River Conservation Authority. The soil
and land use classification from the watershed was
defined by the polygon shape files, which were provided
by the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food. The
combination of landuse and soil type resulted in 118
HRUs. The soil surveys of Waterloo County presented by
Presant and Wicklund (1971) and Wellington County
presented by Hoffman et al (1963) indicated that the
major portion of the watershed has 200 to 600 millimeters
of loam or silty loam of the Huron and Harriston series
overlying a loam till. In the northern part of the
watershed, clay loam is predominant. Loam is the main
soil type in the central portion of the watershed. In the
south and southeastern sections of the watershed, the soil
type is comprised of moraine deposits of very fine sand
and fine sandy loam, with occasional layers of other
material. The topography of the watershed is flat to
gently undulating with a slight slope towards the outlet
in the south.
SWAT models subsurface hydrology module as an
alternative method for simulating tile drainage, water
table depth, and soil moisture content. The main program
of the integrated model, referred to as SWATDRAIN, is a
modified version of the main program, SWAT. A new
subroutine, termed DrainM.f, was written and
incorporated into the SWAT model to affect the
modifications by integrating the DRAINMOD model
approaches to subsurface hydrology, including
predicting tile drainage, water table depth and stored
water in the profile in the SWATDRAIN model. The
newly developed SWATDRAIN model is based on the
DRAINMOD subsurface hydrology simulation and the
SWAT surface hydrology simulation. SWATDRAIN
computes the soil water balance, on a daily basis, for each
HRU in every subbasin. For the first day of the
simulation, all calculations were made on the SWAT
model and the results, including the surface hydrology
parameters, were ready for the first day and for all
HRUs. According to the presence, or absence, of a
drainage system in each HRU across the watershed, it is
termed drained or non-drained, respectively. Next,
DRAINMOD is used for the tile drained HRUs of the
watershed to simulate subsurface hydrology in an
unsaturated zone. For this reason, the main surface
hydrology parameters calculated by SWAT (e.g.
evapotranspiration, runoff and infiltration) on an HRU
basis would be passed on to DRAINMOD through the
intermediary of the DrainM.f subroutine added to the
SWAT source code. DRAINMOD, which is now part of
the SWAT code, would compute subsurface hydrology
parameters for the same day as the surface hydrology
parameters were calculated by SWAT. After simulating
the subsurface drainage, water table depth, and soil
moisture content, the values of these parameters are used
in SWAT. Lastly, DRAINMOD and SWAT were
incorporated to collectively simulate the hydrology on a
watershed scale. This newly developed model integrated
a SWAT-driven surface flow and a DRAINMOD driven

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subsurface flow to improve the accuracy and efficiency of In other months, the average monthly total precipitation
this new model. for the future was less than those of the historical data. In
seasonal graph of PCP, it is obvious that in summer the
future precipitation was greater than the historical
2.3 Climate Data precipitation, while in the other three seasons the future
amounts were less.
The climate data used in this study were provided by
previous research (Rong et al., 2009). Climate change
modeling is not part of this study. In this study, in order
to develop future weather scenarios for the watershed,
CGCM2 in scenario A2 was selected for the future
climatic condition simulation (Rong et al., 2009)

The climate parameters used to run the SWATDRAIN

model are precipitation and min/max temperature from
the Fergus station in Ontario. SDSM downscaling tool is
calibrated and validated using the historical local weather
variables, daily mean precipitation and daily maximum
and minimum temperature. The generated climate
change scenarios by SDSM were entered as the weather
input of the calibrated and validated SWATDRAIN
model. Stream flow at the outlet of the watershed for the
future were then simulated, and compared to the
historical measurements.

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The climate-change impact on hydrology of the

Canagagigue Creek watershed was estimated by running
the SWATDRAIN model using climate data from 1974 to
2044. SWATDRAIN was calibrated and validated for
1974-1984 at the same watershed.

Figure 2 shows the scatter plot of measured and

predicted monthly precipitation values for a part of the
historical period (1974-1984). The observed data are taken
from the Fergus station close to the study area. A
coefficient of determination of 0.83 indicates a good
correspondence between predicted and observed
precipitation values. Figure 4. Historical and future predicted monthly and seasonal
average precipitation

Figure 3. Scatter plot of measured and predicted precipitation

values

The average monthly total precipitation and averaged

seasonal total precipitation for the historical period and
for future period are presented in Figure 3.
The monthly graph of precipitation indicates that in
months such as June, July and August the future monthly
total amounts of precipitation were greater than those in
the historical period, particularly in June.

3
Figure 5. Historical and future simulated seasonal average total,
surface and subsurface flow
The average monthly and seasonal streamflow during
both the historical and the future were compared to see
the monthly change patterns, which are presented in the
graphs. The monthly graph shows that the highest
monthly streamflow for the observed historical period
was April, but for the simulated future it was March.
This may be explained by the fact that snowmelt is
occurring earlier as compared to the historical period.
Therefore, the earlier snowmelt might occur due to
climate change in the future and causes the flow peaks to
move to earlier months. It is clear from the
surface/subsurface graph that the decrease in flow
during April is mainly the result of a decline in surface
flow, which supports the hypothesis of snowmelt before
April.
Figure 6. Historical and future simulated monthly average surface
and subsurface flow
4. CONCLUSION
In terms of the future weather change, warmer winters
and hotter summers might be expected. Obviously,
higher amounts of annual monthly mean precipitation
might be expected in the summer, and thus heavy
rainfalls might occur. Summer might be the most
dramatically altered season in precipitation due to the
high variances in the months from June to August
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The funding received for this project from the Natural
Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada is
gratefully acknowledged.
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