Human-induced land use land cover change and its impact on hydrology

Abstract

The LULC change vis-à-vis climate change inherently encompassing human dimensions consequently impact hydrological processes. A slight change in it may affect the water yield, as both are explicitly linked through various hydrological processes. The future availability of water resources largely depends upon planning and management of land use in this changing environment. However, the continuous human interactions keep on modifying the land use land cover (LULC) to fulfil the enhanced demand especially due to significant increase in population and development towards better facilities. These changes consequently impact each and every hydrological process vis-à-vis water availability. It has now become a major concern for water resources planners and managers. Moreover, these changes in LULC pattern along with changing climate put forth a huge challenge in front of them. The present study investigates the capabilities of Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model, which has been developed as soil-vegetation-atmosphere transfer schemes, to assess the runoff potential. Initially, the required model inputs were derived and simulated at the national scale. It was found that the model has assessed the runoff potential of major river basins with high accuracy. The successful implication of the model at the national scale offered an opportunity to carry out a detailed hydrological simulation to study the impact of LULC change on hydrological regime of a basin. For the analysis, the Pennar River Basin, located in Southern part of India, was selected. The LULC change detection analysis showed that there is human induced alteration to LULC pattern, as the area under urban landscape is increasing (0.14%) and natural forest is declining (0.7%). These changes resulted in increase of runoff potential by around 45%. The study on Indian River basin clearly indicates that the LULC change influence and alter the hydrological regime of the river basin.