Understanding the impacts of climate and landuse change on water yield

Climate and landuse change impact the hydrologic cycle resulting in changes in catchment water yield and streamflow characteristics. Understanding the combined effect of climate and landuse change on water is essential for developing sustainable water resources plans. Most studies consider only the isolated effect of climate alone or landuse alone, and this could skew the picture of hydrologic responses by attributing too little or too much importance to climate or landuse change. Quantifying the combined impact of climate and landuse change is a significant challenge as water yield is the convolution of both these factors. This paper briefly reviews key literature on quantifying climate and landuse change impacts on water yield with an emphasis on the framework developed over the last decade. We discuss the assumptions embedded in the framework and the potential for predicting climate and landuse impact on future water yield.