Assessing effects of land use and land cover changes on hydrological processes and sediment yield in the Xunwu River watershed, Jiangxi Province, China

Abstract

The effects of land use and land cover changes on hydrological processes and sediment yield are important issues in regional hydrology. The Xunwu River catchment located in the red soil hilly region of southern China has experienced drastic land use changes in the past 30 years, with orchard increases of approximately 42% and forest decreases of approximately 40%. These changes have resulted in some alterations of runoff and sediment yield. This study aims to evaluate effects of land use/land cover on runoff and sediment yield in the Xunwu River catchment. The SWAT model (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) was used for runoff and sediment simulation, and the results met the requirements of the model acceptance based on evaluation statistics of R² (the coefficient of determination), PBIAS (percent bias), and NSE (Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency). Four land use scenarios representing the gradual expansion of orchards in the past 26 years were developed for assessment of hydrological processes and sediment yield simulation. As a result, both runoff and sediment yield were changed insignificantly with decrease rates of 1.84% and 5.29%, respectively. In addition, surface runoff accounts for the largest share of the runoff components, but the lateral flow changed more than other runoff components with a decrease rate of 10.96%. The results show that orchard expansion does not reveal severe water and soil loss. This study can contribute to the rational utilization of land and water resources in the red soil hilly area of southern Jiangxi Province.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

land use change / orchard expansion / red soil hilly region / SWAT / runoff / sediment

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Acknowledgments

This research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41961004, 41967012, and 41867012). The authors would like to thank Dominik Scholand, Hanzheyu Xu, and Danqiao Xu for their help during model calibration and data analysis. We would also like to express our thanks to the anonymous reviewers and the editors for their useful ideas for improvement of the manuscript.

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