Development of advanced web-based SWAT LUC system considering yearly land use changes and recession curve characteristics

Abstract

Land use change needs to be considered in hydrological modeling because these affect various hydrologic components as well as sediment and water quality in a watershed. It cannot predict the hydrological phenomena accurately without considering the dynamics of land use changes. Most of the hydrological models reflect invariable land use with time. The LUC module that can be used in Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) has been developed to overcome the issue. To help the user to prepare its input files, the SAWT2009_LUC Tool and LUU system had been also developed as the subsidiary tools. Although these tools can consider the temporal and spatial changes of land use, it has several limitations that cannot consider the period between two or more land uses generated at different years when land use and relative parameters are changing. Thus, this study developed the web-based LUC system with two modules which can supplement the limitation of previous module. Based on the results of this study, it was found that the model performance (streamflow prediction) using the newly developed modules showed an improvement compared with the original model performance. Thus, these modules included in the web-based LUC system are useful to consider the dynamics of land use changes spatially and temporarily and appropriate recession curve characteristics at watershed scales.