Impacts of Land-Cover Change and Irrigation on the Energy and Water Balance in the Lower Mekong Basin

The Mekong River is one of the important rivers in Southeast Asia. It is facing water resources problems over the last several decades due to population growth, pollution, economic development, land cover and climate change. With increasing demand for water and energy, forests are extensively replaced with reservoirs and irrigated agricultural lands, thus impacting the water-energy-food nexus. In this presentation we will discuss the conversion of significant land cover and land use types between 1992-2015 due to combination of environmental and human-induced changes and analyze the impact of land cover change and newly built dams on hydrological processes including runoff, , evapotranspiration (ET) and surface temperature in the Lower Mekong River Basin using the Noah Land Surface Model (LSM) and a recent 300-m ESACCI-land cover (European Space Agency Climate Change Initiative) data. Model simulated total water storage and evapotranspiration will be validated using GRACE and MODIS satellite remote sensing products, respectively. The study will characterize the drought using multiple climate indices for the present and future conditions in the Mekong River basin.