Modelling and investigating the upper-Seyhan river basin ecosystem variables and their interactions under the climate change

The main objective of this study is to estimate the effects of hydrological quantities including runoff components, evapotranspiration and precipitation on the Net Primary Production (NPP) of Upper-Seyhan Basin located on Eastern Mediterranean Region of Turkey. The correlations of the ecosystem variables were derived on eco-hydrological basis in respect to the interactions between the NPP and hydrological quantities. The area is characterised by a rich biodiversity in terms of tree species and high vulnerability to water availability and quality. Predicting and modelling the interactions of water cycles and forest productivity are an important issue to understand future dynamics of forest ecosystems under different scenarios. This has particular importance in managing water resources at semi-arid environments of Mediterranean.In this study, the interaction of hydrological dynamics and the forest productivity were modelled in three main phases; i) modelling hydrological dynamics using J2000 hydrological modelling system, ii) modelling Net Primary Production (NPP) of the forest ecosystem using BIOME-BGC Model, iii) incorporating the J2000 and BIOME model results to define seasonal changes and the interaction of hydrological dynamics and the forest productivity, The evaluation on a monthly basis were performed to investigate seasonal changes of the ecosystem functions and their interactions. According to the model validations, the model approaches were able to capture the main physical processes that govern the carbon and water fluxes across different altitude zones. Thus, the corresponding cycles in a Mediterranean subcatchment were simulated with reasonable accuracy, reasonably.