An investigation on the effect of land use land cover changes on surface water quantity

Abstract

The present study is an attempt to show how changes in land use and land cover would change the quantity of surface water resources in a river basin in northwestern Iran. In order to detect the changing trend of surface water quantity in the river basin, the long-term statistic data of sediment load and river discharge were gathered over the period between 1987 and 2013. For land use change detection of the river basin, the land use land cover maps of the study area in the years of 1987, 1998, 2002, 2009, and 2013 were prepared from Landsat satellite images using supervised classification method. The changing trend of river discharge showed a significant and positive relationship with rain-fed agriculture (R2 = 0.8152), poor rangeland (R2 = 0.7978), and urban areas (R2 = 0.8377). There was also a strong negative correlation between water discharge and irrigated agriculture (R2 = 0.7286) and good rangeland (R2 = 0.8548). In conclusion, increasing the area of rain-fed agriculture, good rangeland (type IV), and urban land uses, due to their effects on increasing the runoff, have caused an increase in the water flow of Zanjanroud River.

River Runoff Influence Factors Recognition Using Stepwise Regression Analysis: The Case of a Northern Chinese Coal Mining Area

“…In many locations, climate change may significantly reduce river runoff and urban water supplies [27][28][29]. Many recent studies have also shown that human activities, including land use change [30], agricultural irrigation, reservoir storage, coal mining, industrial and domestic water consumption have become the main reasons for effects on surface water resources [31].…”

Small-Scale Land Use Change Modelling Using Transient Groundwater Levels and Salinities as Driving Factors – an Example from a Sub-Catchment of Australia's Murray-Darling Basin

“…Stein et al (2010) used fauna and bacteria as ecological indicators for the assessment of groundwater quality under LUC, and Barber et al (1996) combined GIS methods and groundwater models to evaluate the relationship between LUC and groundwater quality through concentrations of volatile organic compounds. Related to the impact of LUC on water quantity, Mirhosseini et al (2018) investigated how LUC and land cover would impact the quantity of surface water resources. Shrestha et al (2020) developed future scenarios of groundwater availability to assess the impact of future LUC on water availability within a river basin.…”

“…There has been limited research using LUCM to assess the impact groundwater or surface water quality and availability has on LUC. Previous studies have related the impact of LUC on water quantity not the other way around (Barber et al, 1996;Di et al, 2005;Mirhosseini et al, 2018;Sheikhy Narany et al, 2017;Shrestha et al, 2020;Stein et al, 2010). However, Luo et al (2010) did evaluate the suitability of LU locations by using logistic regression to indicate the probability of an area to be devoted to a single LU given seven potential driving factors, that included groundwater levels and quality.…”