Assessment of Future Land Use/Land Cover Scenarios on the Hydrology of a Coastal Basin in South-Central Chile

Camila Orellana Pereira, Rossana Escanilla-Minchel, Alejandra Cortés González, Hernán Alcayaga (), Mauricio Aguayo, Miguel Aguayo Arias and Alejandro N. Flores
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Camila Orellana Pereira: Civil Engineering Department, Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago 8370109, Chile
Rossana Escanilla-Minchel: School of Geography, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK
Alejandra Cortés González: Civil Engineering Unit, Department of Water Resources Management, Ministry of Public Works of Chile, Santiago 8370190, Chile
Hernán Alcayaga: School of Civil Works, Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago 8370190, Chile
Mauricio Aguayo: Faculty of Environmental Sciences, EULA-Chile Centre, University of Concepción, Concepción 4070386, Chile
Miguel Aguayo Arias: Faculty of Natural Resources, Universidad Católica de Temuco, Temuco 4781312, Chile
Alejandro N. Flores: Department of Geoscience, Boise State University, Boise, ID 83702, USA

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 24, 1-20

Abstract: Land use and land cover (LULC) change is one of the clearest representations of the global environmental change phenomenon at various spatial and temporal scales. Chile is worldwide recognized to have areas dedicated to non-native forest plantations that specifically in coastal range show high environmental and economic deterioration, questioning the sustainability of the forestry industry. Currently, there are no studies in Chile that reveal the real effects of the LULC change on the water balance at basin or sub-basin scales associated with future scenarios, which might contribute to territorial decision-making and reveal the real magnitude of the effects of these dynamics. In this study, in order to study LULC dynamics in a coastal basin in South-Central Chile, we assessed and analyzed the effects of future LULC change scenarios on the hydrological processes by generating future synthetic land cover maps from Landsat (Landsat 5 TM and Landsat 8 OLI) image datasets. The hydrological model Soil Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was calibrated and validated, using hydroclimatic time series, to simulate discharges and other hydrological components over those future LULC scenarios. The LULC future scenarios were projected using combined Markov chain analysis (CA–Markov) and cellular automata algorithms for the near (2025), middle (2035) and far (2045) future. The results revealed that the effects on the different components of the water balance of the basin are not as significant except in the soil water transfer in percolation (increase 72.4%) and groundwater flow (increase 72.5%). This trend was especially observed in sub-basins with non-native forest plantations that dominated land cover in the year 2035, in which an increase of 43.6% in percolation and groundwater flows resulted in increased aquifer recharge and water storage, mainly offset by a decrease of 27% in the evapotranspiration. This work demonstrates the importance of evaluating the impacts of the dynamics of LULC on the hydrological response of a coastal basin, and also on how the land use governance and policy are closely linked to that of water resources.

Keywords: LULC changes; hydrological modeling SWAT; LULC future scenarios; water balance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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