Assessment of the effects of landuse landcover changes on water balance components

Abstract

The landuse and landcover change is considered as one of the most vital components of the global environmental change responsible for influencing the quantity, seasonal patterns and durations of the water flow within basins around the world. The aim of this study is to assess the impacts of changes in landuse landcover on the various hydrological components for Lake Kyoaga for a period of 2002-2022 using Soil and Water Assessment Tool model. The landuse landcover maps have been prepared using various Landsat satellite images for the year 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014, 2018 and 2022.The fixing changing method has been employed to quantify the impacts of landuse changes on hydrological components by changing the landuse maps of different year and keeping soil map the same. The Pairwise pearson correlation coefficient is used to examine the impacts of change in landuse on the hydrological components. The results unveiled that there is an increase in built-up, water balance components and decrease in vegetation. During the period 2002–2022 there is increase in stream flow (3.16%), surface runoff (8.39%) and water yield (2.07%) on the contrary there is decrease in Evapotranspiration (1.81%), lateral flow (29.33%), Percolation (3.51%) and Base flow (5.04%) owing to changes in landuse landcover. There is an urgent need to adopt soil and water conservation practices in the areas of Lake Kyaga to avert these deleterious effects of landuse landcover changes