Abstract
ABSTRACT Land-use changes promote significant variations in streamflow regimes, and hydrological models allow studying their impacts. Based on this approach, this study aimed to assess the applicability of the SWAT model for different land-use scenarios and their respective impacts on the flow regime of the Mucuri River. The average monthly and daily water balance was generated after the calibration and validation of the SWAT model in the basin. Three land-use scenarios were analyzed in relation to the current land use, as follows: replacement of the agricultural area by the eucalyptus crop, replacement of the native forest area by the sugarcane crop, and replacement of pasture by exposed soil. The results showed that the SWAT model is adequate to simulate the land-use change and its impact on the flow regime of the Mucuri River; the replacement of agriculture by eucalyptus in the basin led to a decrease in the average and minimum reference streamflows; and the replacement of the forest cover by sugarcane and pasture by exposed soil provided an increase in the average and minimum reference streamflows.
Highlights
The intense and disordered replacement of natural landscapes by more intensive land uses has contributed significantly to the deterioration of the quality and quantity of water resources
The results were considered good according to the obtained statistical indices, indicating that the model was efficient to simulate the streamflow behavior in the control section established by the station, in both flood and drought periods (Almeida et al, 2018)
The soil and water assessment tool (SWAT) model was efficient to simulate the impact of the land-use change for the proposed scenarios on the flow regime of the Mucuri River basin
Summary
The intense and disordered replacement of natural landscapes by more intensive land uses has contributed significantly to the deterioration of the quality and quantity of water resources. Knowledge of the effects of land-use change on the qualitative and quantitative dynamics of water resources is necessary to mitigate this important environmental impact. The soil and water assessment tool (SWAT) hydrological model is a semi-distributed model created to study the effect of land use management on various components, such as flows, sediments, pesticides, and nutrients. It has an important interface with the geographic information systems, facilitating the entry, manipulation, and editing of databases that feed the system (Andrade et al, Monteiro et al, 2015)
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