Summary Human activities have historically affected hydrology in the upper Midwestern United States, specifically through the conversion of forests and prairie grasslands to agricultural uses. The hydrologic impacts of land-use change due to settlement on the water balance of three Great Lakes states: Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan were analyzed using the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) large-scale hydrology model, and changes in the spatial distribution of vegetation types were studied. Point model simulations demonstrated that the VIC model simulated changes in average annual and monthly evapotranspiration (ET) and total runoff response were in the same direction and had similar magnitudes to values from other published [...]
