Drought impacts on hydrology and water quality under climate change

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has predicted that droughts are projected to affect global hydrology and water quality in varying ways, resulting in a considerable challenge to water availability for society, environment, and ecosystems. This study employed the Soil and Water Assessment Tool to evaluate how drought affects hydrology and water quality in the Miyun Reservoir watershed, coupled with bias-corrected climate projections in the Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 scenario, accommodating the intercoupling effects of precipitation shifts and rising temperatures. The standardized precipitation index (SPI), standardized runoff index (SRI), and standardized soil moisture index (SSWI) were used to characterize meteorological, hydrological, and agricultural droughts that occur in the different phases in the hydrological cycle. Climate change had the most significant impact on agricultural drought. SSWI were projected to considerably increase in intensity, frequency, and duration in most subbasins by up to 15 %, 55 %, and 45 %, respectively, and showed a strong correlation with meteorological and hydrological droughts (correlation coefficients r = 0.54, 0.57, and 0.60 with SPI for the baseline, near future and far future periods, and 0.91, 0.87, and 0.89 with SRI for the three periods, respectively). Hydrological components, sediment export, and nutrient loss were highly correlated with changes in drought indexes, with r ranging between −0.68 and 0.34 in the near future period and −0.62 and 0.53 in the far future period. Drought conditions of surface runoff and soil water dominated the changes in sediment export, and hydrological drought was the major cause for reduced nutrient loads. In addition to drought impacts, the synergistic effects of increasing precipitation and rising temperature led to a certain degree of increase in sediment and nutrient exports. The results of this study emphasize the need to enhance the resilience of watershed systems to the predicted increases in the intensity, frequency, and duration of droughts.