Hydrological consequences of land use change: A review of the state-of-science

Abstract

Rates of deforestation, agriculturalization, urbanization, wetland drainage, and several other types of land use change have accelerated as a function of the growth of human populations. Hydrologists have recognized for nearly a half century that such land use changes can substantially affect hydrological processes at the scale of the research plot, the hillslope, and the small experimental catchment. The hydrological consequences of land use change are of interest not only to the academic hydrologist and ecologist, but they are of critical importance to the practicing civil engineer. At the beginning of the 21st century, these studies are increasingly being incorporated into multi-scale analyses used to address both scientific and management questions at landscape, river basin, and regional scales. Such efforts are being supported by major technological developments in collecting, analyzing, and modeling hydrological data, as well as new capabilities for observing and quantifying land use and land cover changes using remote sensors. In this chapter, I(1) summarize various scientific methods that have been used to determine the hydrological effects of land use change; (2) review the state-of-science with respect to understanding the effects of several different types of land use change on hydrological processes; and (3) identify key research issues related to uses of specific methodologies and to improved understanding, detection, quantification, and prediction of the hydrological consequences of specific land use changes.