Evaluation of the effect of land use changes on subsurface flow using WetSpa model, case study: Horo-Dehno Watershed

The land use changes cause changes in components of the hydrological cycle and increase or reduce the amount of runoff. Subsurface runoff is one of the most important parts of the runoff in wet areas, especially in steepy lands with higher vegetation. Given the advantages and capabilities of distributed hydrological models, these models are appropriate to assess changes in land use and quantitative estimates of changes. In this study, evaluation of the effects of land use change scenarios on the subsurface flow rate was investigated using WetSpa model on daily basis in Horo-Dehno Watershed with an area of 263.43 Km2. Daily hydro-meteorology data including evapotranspiration, precipitation and temperature from 2006 to 2010 were used to run the model, . The model input maps included DEM, land use and soil texture maps. According to the watershed potentials, four scenarios of land use change were planned in ArcGIS and entered in the calibrated model for simulation. In order to use model to simulate the effects of land use change scenarios, sensitivity and uncertainty analysis and calibration were performed manually and afterwards with the PEST optimization program. In addition, to compare the output hydrograph of subsurface flow in current situation of four scenarios with simulated results, changes in hydrological processes and parameters were evaluated. This analysis showed that improving land use is the reason of increasing of subsurface flow, increasing of deep infiltration, reducing of surface runoff and increasing of watershed time of concentration . Whereas, land degradation reduces the amounts of subsurface flow, permeability to deep and surface aquifers and increases runoff volume. Therefore, maintaining and improving current land uses are one of the major alternatives for watershed surface runoff management.