Understanding land use/land cover and climate change impacts on hydrological components of Usri watershed, India

• Published in: Applied water science 2022-03, Vol.12 (3), p.1-14, Article 39
• Main Authors: Kumar, Mukesh, Denis, Derrick M., Kundu, Arnab, Joshi, Nitin, Suryavanshi, Shakti
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Aquatic Pollution; Barren lands; Calibration; Climate; Climate change; Climatic data; Comparative Law; Components; Decision making; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Environmental factors; Environmental impact; Evapotranspiration; GIScience and Geostatistics Applied to Groundwater Resources; Hydrogeology; Hydrologic models; Hydrology; Industrial and Production Engineering; International & Foreign Law; Land cover; Land use; Land use/cover; Nanotechnology; Original Article; Private International Law; Resource management; Soil water; Stream discharge; Stream flow; Streamflow; SWAT model; Urbanization; Waste Water Technology; Water balance; Water Industry/Water Technologies; Water Management; Water Pollution Control; Water resources; Water resources management; Watersheds
• ISSN: 2190-5487; 2190-5495
• DOI: 10.1007/s13201-021-01547-6

Land use/cover (LULC) and climate are significant environmental factors that influence watershed hydrology across the globe. The present study attempts to understand the consequences of existing changing patterns of climate and LULC on the hydrology of the Usri watershed. Different water balance components were simulated using a semi-distributed Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model. Sixteen scenarios were generated using combinations of four periods of climatic data (1974–84; 1985–1995; 1996–2006 and 2007–2016) and four sets of land use maps (1976; 1989; 2000 and 2014). The SWAT model performed well for monthly stream flows during calibration and validation. The study finds that the individual impact of LULC change contributes to increase in the streamflow and decrease in evapotranspiration (ET) primarily due to increase in urbanization and decrease in water bodies, forest cover and barren land of Usri watershed. The combined impact of climatic variations and land use change reveals complex interactions. The study provides insight into hydrological response to variations in climate and land use changes in Usri watershed in recent decades. The results of this study can be beneficial to the authorities, decision-makers, water resource engineers and planners for the best water resource management approaches in the perspective of climate change and LULC transformation of similar ecological regions as that of Usri.