Hydrologic Effects of Size and Location of Fields Converted from Drained Pine Forest to Agricultural Cropland

Abstract

Hydrological effects of land-use change are of great concern to ecohydrologists and watershed managers, especially in the Atlantic coastal plain of the southeastern United States. The concern is attributable to rapid population growth and the resulting pressure to develop forested lands. Many researchers have studied these effects in various scales, with varying results. An extended watershed-scale forest hydrologic model, calibrated with 1996–2000 data, was used to evaluate long-term hydrologic effects of conversion to agriculture (corn–wheat–soybean cropland) of a 29.5-km2 intensively managed pine-forested watershed in Washington County in eastern North Carolina. Fifty years of weather data (1951–2000) from a nearby weather station were used for simulating hydrology to evaluate effects on outflows, evapotranspiration, and water table depth compared with the baseline scenario. Other simulation scenarios were created for each of five different percentages (10, 25, 50, 75, and 100%) of land-use conversion occurring at upstream and downstream locations in the pine-forest watershed. Simulations revealed that increased mean annual outflow was significant (α=0.05) only for 100% conversion from forest (261 mm) to agricultural crop (326 mm), primarily attributed to a reduction in evapotranspiration. Although high flow rates >5 mm day−1 increased from 2.3 to 2.6% (downstream) and 2.6 to 4.2% (upstream) for 25 to 50% conversion, the frequency was higher for the upstream location than the downstream. These results were attributed to a substantial decrease in soil hydraulic conductivity of one of the dominant soils in the upstream location, which is expected after land-use conversion to agriculture. As a result, predicted subsurface drainage decreased, and surface runoff increased as soil hydraulic conductivity decreased for the soil upstream. These results indicate that soil hydraulic properties resulting from land-use conversion have a greater influence on hydrologic components than the location of land use conversion.