The impact of different land use change scenarios on precipitation in a semiarid Mediterranean area in Southeastern Spain

Land use changes are the major anthropogenic alterations which are considered to have an important impact on the climate system. In semiarid regions such as the the Southeastern Spain where water is the major limiting factor for ecosystems functioning and human development, knowledge about future water availability is of high importance above all in the context of climate change. To better understand the potential impact of land use change on the regional climate, we used the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model to simulate the impact of different land use scenarios on precipitation in the Jucar Basin in Southeastern Spain. We conducted three different scenarios: (1) increasing the tree cover areas, (2) removing the tree cover and increasing the shrubland areas, and (3) increasing the urban areas in the coastal areas. Preliminary results show that increasing the tree cover areas will likely increase the annual precipitation (approximately +3%) in the region, and mostly affecting the autumn period (+8%) with respect to the actual land use scenario. Removing the tree cover and increasing the urban areas resulted in reduced precipitation above all during the spring season (-3%).