Assessing The Effects Of Land Use/Cover Change On Hydrological Regime Of Kunhar River Basin Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, Pakistan (T-1329) (MFN 7086)

Abstract

The anthropogenic activities are directly impact on land use and land cover change due to these changes the socioeconomic and environmental system are disturbed. For sustainable management of natural resources to understand the types and impacts of land use and land cover change are the main indicators for resource base analysis. Land use change directly impact on the hydrology of the watershed. Remote sensing and GIS data were integrated with the hydrological model to analyze the land use change and evaluate the impact of these changes on the hydrology of Kunhar watershed during the study period (2000-2017). The land use change analysis, can be calculated that the land use of the Kunhar watershed showed a significantly change during the eighteen years of the study period. The trend showed increased in land use classes include settlements from 10% to 15% and exposed rocks 21.23% to 32.57% while decreased land use classes includes forest 22.30 to 14.22% bare soil 3.34% to 2.75% glaciers 21.7% to 16.39% and rangeland 19.3% to 16.73% 2.5%. The expansion of the settlements and decreasing of the forest and glacier cover is detected in every year of the study period. The yearly maximum temperature was recorded 27.6 °C in the year 2016 while the minimum temperature recoded 11.4 °C in the year 2011. The 18 years of mean yearly highest precipitation recorded 2316 mm in 2006 while minimum precipitation recorded 1023.04 mm in year 2017. The maximum mean yearly flow recoded at Ghari Habibullah station was 1546.13 m³/s and in the year of 2017 while the minimum flow recorded 647.8 m³/s in year 2001. The rising in temperature, expansion in settlements, decreasing of forest cover, melting of glaciers may directly impact on the hydrology of the watershed. Results show the runoff is increased and the discharge of Kunhar River at both flow gauging stations increased. This study can be used as a baseline for the better management of the existing and future water reservoirs in the water scarce areas of the country. Emerging tool can also help to develop the land use planning and management along with variation in the meteorological parameters which effect the inflows in the watershed areas.