Investigation into impacts of land-use changes on floods in the upper Huaihe River basin, China

Abstract

Abstract. To investigate the agricultural land-use change on flood regime, the upper Huaihe River basin above the Dapoling station was selected as the case study site. Based on topography, land-use, hydrological and meteorological data in 1990s and 2010s, the improved distributed Xinanjiang model, with potential evapotranspiration being computed by coupling a dual-source evapotranspiration model with a simplified plant growth model, was adopted to simulate the daily and hourly rainfall-runoff processes over 1990s and 2010s, and then the effects of land-use change on flood volume, flood peak, occurring time of flood peak, the percentage of surface runoff component were investigated respectively. The results was interesting and indicated that impacts of land-use change on flood characteristics varied significantly with land-use types. The outputs could provide valuable references for flood risk management and water resources management in the Huaihe River basin.

Model Land Cover Index – Peak Discharge in Management of River Basin

“…In both cases, the resulting flood was more severe as its volume increased significantly [2]. In another case, the change in the land use from a paddy field to unvegetated land also increased the flood volume and the percentage of the surface run-off volume, and caused the flood peak to arrive sooner [3]. These examples are in line with the work of Sarminingsih et al [4] who quantified the vulnerability of various land uses to flooding.…”