Hydrologic response to changes in land use and variations of physical catchment characteristics
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This study evaluates land-use change and its modeled hydrological response in the study area, which covers 731.41 km 2 of the Genfel watershed. The watershed ranges in altitude from 1764 to 3065 m a.m.l and its mean precipitation and temperature are approximately 597.9 mm and 18.8 °C, respectively. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model was used to simulate watershed hydrological processes, while multi-temporal Landsat imagery from 1987, 2002, and 2017 was classified using supervised classification to assess land-use/land-cover changes. The SWAT model showed limited performance during calibration and validation, particularly at the monthly time step. For daily calibration, the coefficient of determination (R 2 ) and Nash–Sutcliffe (ENS) were 0.5111 and 0.16, respectively, whereas monthly calibration produced R2 and NSE values of 0.6428 and −0.23, respectively. Daily validation yielded R2 and NSE values of 0.5147 and 0.16, respectively, while monthly validation yielded R2 and NSE values of 0.6133 and −0.05, respectively. These results indicate substantial uncertainty in the simulated hydrological responses and therefore require cautious interpretation. Land-use change showed a substantial increase in cultivation from 36.525% in 1987 to 48.383% in 2002 and 54.01% in 2017, while forest cover decreased from 7.624% in 1987 to 1.665% in 2002 and 0.237% in 2017. Given the SWAT model’s limited performance, the simulated results are interpreted as model-based scenario responses rather than definitive evidence of historical causation. The study’s novelty lies in integrating multi-temporal remote sensing, GIS-based watershed characterization, SWAT water balance simulation, and sub-watershed morphometric analysis in a data-scarce watershed. The results provide a basis for targeted watershed monitoring, soil and water conservation, and further field-based investigation.
Source: Water Science
Institutions: Adigrat University, Dire Dawa University
Language: English
Subfield: Water Science and Technology
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7223085014