EAPSI: Understanding the impacts of agricultural and urban land use on flood prediction and mitigation

洪水预测和减灾是流域管理的重要方面，特别是在新英格兰，由于城市化和气候变化的共同作用，30年来洪水呈上升趋势。除了城市发展，新英格兰目前正在经历农业用地开发的增加。虽然已充分研究了将森林转变为城市土地所增加的洪水风险，但将森林转变为农业还需要进一步研究。该项目将调查新英格兰地区从森林到农业的土地利用变化对洪水风险的影响，并将土地利用变化单独造成的影响与土地利用和气候变化共同造成的影响分开。这项研究将与日本东京大学的Oki Taikan博士合作进行。Oki博士的实验室开发并验证了一个洪水模型，该模型在洪水和土地利用变化研究领域处于领先地位。与森林相比，农业用地在土壤和生物量中储存水分的能力较弱。通过植物蒸散耗水量的季节循环在农业用地上也有所不同，在生长高峰期可能比森林耗水量大，但在休眠期和休耕期耗水量明显少。大多数流域包含多种土地利用类型。因此，水文流域建模可以帮助理解这些过程，并预测未来不同发展模式下洪水风险的变化。本研究将结合两个现有模型；第一个是水平衡模型，它通过水坝、灌溉和流域间调水来代表陆地表面和水管理。第二种是洪水模型，用于预测洪水事件、洪水水量和淹没水位。这些模型中的每一个都不能单独解决这里概述的研究目标；因此，耦合这些模型是理解和预测土地利用变化与洪水风险之间联系的独特解决方案。NSF EAPSI奖是与日本科学促进会合作资助的。

Flood prediction and mitigation are important aspects of watershed management, especially in New England where a 30-year upward trend in floods has been attributed to a combination of urbanization and climate change. In addition to urban development, New England is currently experiencing an increase in agricultural land development. While increases in flood risk from conversion of forests to urban land has been well studied, conversion from forest to agriculture requires further research. This project will investigate the impact that land use change from forest to agriculture has on flood risks in New England, and will separate impacts due to land use change alone, and impacts of combined land use and climate change. This research will be conducted in collaboration with Dr. Taikan Oki at the University of Tokyo in Japan. Dr. Oki's lab has developed and validated a flood model that is cutting edge in the field of flood and land-use change research. Compared to forests, agricultural land has less capacity to store water in soil and biomass. The seasonal cycle of water consumption through plant evapotranspiration also differs in agricultural land, with potentially greater water consumption than forests during peak growth periods, but significantly less water consumption during dormant and fallow seasons. Most watersheds contain multiple land use types. Therefore hydrologic watershed modeling can help understand these processes and make predictions about future changes in flood risk due to different development patterns. This study will couple two existing models; the first is a water balance model that represents the land surface and water management through dams, irrigation, and interbasin water transfers. The second is a flood model that predicts flood events, flood water volume, and inundation levels. Each of these models alone could not address the research goals outlined here; coupling the models is therefore a unique solution to understanding and predicting the connections between land use change and flood risks. This NSF EAPSI award is funded in collaboration with the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.