Evaluation of Runoff Responses to Land Use Changes and Land Cover Changes in the Upper Huaihe River Basin, China

Abstract

Runoff changes in response to land use and land cover changes in the Huaihe River were drastic in the last few decades and are poorly understood because results from those studies are often equivocal. Hitherto, the methodology to quantify the effects of land use and land cover changes on the runoff response has been mainly the paired catchment approach, which is a blackbox, and usually restricted to small headwater basins where a control can be established. A model-based change-detection approach is developed in this study as an alternative to paired catchment methods. This approach is particularly suited to evaluating effects of land use and land cover changes on the hydrologic response in large to mesoscale watersheds in which suitable control is not possible. The Xinanjiang model was used to evaluate the newly implemented approach in the Dapoling watershed (with an area of