Assessing impacts of Spatio-temporal changes in land use and land cover on the hydrologic response of an Indian Catchment
- 1PG Scholar, Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Ropar-140001, India (2021cem1005@iitrpr.ac.in)
- 2Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Ropar-140001, India, (sagar@iitrpr.ac.in)
The hydrology of a catchment is sensitive to its intrinsic attributes, such as the land use/land cover
(LULC), soil type, and topography, which collectively determines its response to the weather inputs
(e.g., precipitation, temperature, radiation, etc.). The dynamic nature of LULC in both space and time
poses a severe challenge in the reliable prediction of the hydrologic response of catchments.
However, the spatio-temporal variation in LULC is seldom accounted for in hydrological modeling
studies, which leads to an inaccurate characterization of the watershed. In this study, we have
incorporated dynamic LULC (both in space and time) within the Soil and Water Assessment Tool
(SWAT) model, using SWAT-LUT (Land use Update Tool) for the Nowrangpur catchment in India. The
LULC maps corresponding to the years 1985, 1995, 2005, and 2015 are used to generate the
intermediate years’ maps via linear interpolation. The future LULC maps till the year 2035 are
predicted using Cellular Automata- Artificial Neural Network (CA-ANN) algorithm in the GIS
framework. It is observed that there is a reduction in the forest cover from 19.13% in the year 1985
to 7.55% in the year 2015, along with the expansion of urban areas and impervious surface from
0.36% in the year 1985 to 2.47% in the year 2015. Calibration and validation of the monthly
streamflows are performed by accounting for dynamic LULC within the catchment through SWAT-
LUT. The satisfactory performance of the SWAT model is observed in predicting the monthly
streamflows in the Nowrangpur catchment. Further, the comparison of streamflow prediction under
static and dynamic LULC is performed. In these two cases, the observed changes in the values of
water balance components (i.e., with and without using SWAT-LUT), such as evapotranspiration,
surface runoff, infiltration, and water yield, are studied. The changes in the water balance
components are attributed to the LULC changes within the catchment. The results indicate that the
land use update (to account for the Spatio-temporal variability in LULC) needs to be incorporated to
determine the reliable hydrological response of a catchment.
How to cite: Kaur, S. and Chavan, S.: Assessing impacts of Spatio-temporal changes in land use and land cover on the hydrologic response of an Indian Catchment, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 24–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-14603, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-14603, 2023.
