Hydrological effects of land use and climate changes in northern Greece

This paper examines the impacts of climate and land use change on water resources in the Aliakmon river basin, located in Northern Greece. The hydrological model Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was calibrated and implemented to estimate total runoff at the outlet of the basin, under different climate (HadCM2) and land use change (deforestation by 5, 10 and 20% and reduction of agricultural land by 10%) scenarios. Land use change scenarios gave insignificant changes in total runoff values for the period 1971-2002, while climate change scenario resulted in important reduction of mean annual and monthly runoff during the period 2003-2050.