The Effect of Land Use and Land Cover Change on the Stream Structure: Case Study in the Qinhuai River Basin, China

Abstract

The effect of land use and cover change (LUCC) aroused heated topic in the field of hydrogen. Change of LUCC and its effect on the stream structure in the study area are analyzed in paper. The land use transfer matrix from 1979 to 2006 was built through GIS and RS technique to perform an analysis on the characteristic of the LUCC, and its effect on river system is discussed using river structure indices. Result shows that (1) the loss of the forest, paddy field and dry land has contributed most to the increase of the urban area (16.76%, 7.11% and 10.75% respectively). (2) Length and density of river are decreasing by 41% and stability of river (SR) is shortening, especially in the moderately urbanised area, whose SR reach to 0.67. The low-grade river disappears more and the stream structure is not as complex as before.