Land use/land cover change and climate change impact on the hydrological response of El Rejón Dam watershed using artificial intelligence

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to calculate the potential impact of the land use land cover (LULC) change, in addition to the climate change effect on precipitation on hydrological response of the dam watershed and therefore on the design of the hydraulic work. The maximum design discharge flow of El Rejón Dam for 2053 was estimated using cellular automata, an artificial intelligence technique which is based on historical geospatial information for the calibration of the parameters. While, to consider the effect of climate change on precipitation in the study area the CMIP5 scenario was used with the HADGEM2_ES model. The results indicate an increase of 9.48% in the maximum design flow due to LULC dynamics and an increase of up to 41.52% owing to the effect of climate change on precipitation. To counteract this increase, it is concluded that the reforestation of the upper area of the watershed is necessary, since the forest area is decreasing and turning into grassland. This work presents the first analysis and projection based on artificial intelligence, to consider the change in land use and its potential impact on the maximum design flow of a hydraulic work in Mexico.