CHARM: A Hydrologic Model for Land Use and Climate Change Studies in China

Wiberg, D. & Strzepek, K.M. (2000). CHARM: A Hydrologic Model for Land Use and Climate Change Studies in China. IIASA Interim Report. IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria: IR-00-072

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Abstract

China is a country, which is rapidly changing and developing. The population is enormous and still increasing and the economy is growing at a rate that is one of the world's fastest. These factors are placing substantial stress on China's natural resources. Already, the best agricultural land is used and cities are expanding on top of some of this fertile land. Cities are growing so fast that improving and increasing electric and water infrastructure cannot keep up with demand. Much of Northern China is already in a situation of severe water stress.

In order to understand how the resource stress will affect China's development, knowledge of the currently available resource in any area is necessary. Furthermore, possible changes in the resource availability in the future must be understood. These changes could be natural or anthropogenic ranging from climate change to changing land from pasture to irrigated farmland. If good data is available, the current resource availability is already known for all areas and a model can be used to investigate the impacts of any changes to the system. However, if good data is not available, a model must be used to gain both the current state and the impacts of changes. The latter is the method employed here to assess China's water availability.

In this paper, a hydrologic model is developed to assess China's water availability. CHARM, for Climate and Human Activities sensitive Runoff Model, is developed to provide the runoff produced from rainfall throughout China on a 5 km x 5 km grid-cell resolution. The model is calibrated to average annual watershed runoff values. CHARM can then not only supply currently available surface water runoff for entire regions, but can supply runoff and runoff variability inter-annually and intra-annually for any area desired. Furthermore, it can be used to assess the impacts of land use and climate change on water resources. Here, the methodology of CHARM is developed and validated on two watersheds in the Yellow River Basin in China. It is then used to assess the current water resource supply in China. Finally, the strengths and weaknesses in the model and the modeling approach are discussed to assist the modeler in interpreting the results.

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