Assessment of Soil Erosion and Water Balance Responses to Future Land Use Land Cover and Climate Scenarios

Abstract

Watershed hydrology and soil erosion are the environmental components that are greatly affected by climate and environmental perturbations. Land use change is the main factor influencing watershed hydrology and could serve for developing better watershed management practices. An approach of empirical and hydrological modelling was used to examine the impacts of LULC and climate change scenarios on hydrology and sediment in Bhavani watershed, Tamil Nadu, India. The CA-ANN model (MOLUSCE module), which integrates artificial neural networks and cellular automata, was used for simulating and predicting changes in LULC using different spatial variables such as DEM, slope, aspect, distance from roads, and distance from built-up areas. The use of morphometry, land use, and slope coupled with the multicriteria analytical (MCA) framework was adopted to estimate the soil erosion susceptibility of the sub watersheds using remote sensing and geographical information system techniques. Further, the hydrological modelling using SWAT (Soil Water Assessment Tool) was used to examine the impacts of LULC and climate change scenarios on the hydrology of the watersheds newline