Effects of land use and land cover changes on water yield in GOI watershed of Narmada basin

Abstract

The land use changes have significant influence on the hydrological response from river basins. The runoff characteristics are usually altered due to reduction of initial abstraction that increases the runoff volume. Thus it is necessary to quantify the likely changes in the runoff characteristics for a watershed as an impact of the planned or unplanned changes made in the land use. These changes might be gradual or might be instantaneous. Physically based conceptual models are developed to incorporate surface characteristics and its impact on the overland flows. One of the examples is the Soil Conservation Service (SCS) model that has a wide range of applicability. The present study is aimed at application of the SCS model to analyze the impact of deforestation and other land-use changes on the runoff characteristics of a watershed of River Goi, a tributary of River Narmada in India. The analysis includes generation of land-cover/land-use maps at various points of time using the satellite imageries and other maps, development of a data base from the maps using GIS and modeling of the runoff under various land use/land cover conditions using the SCS model.