Document Type

Article

Publication Date

8-8-2024

Abstract

This research investigates the future dynamics of water yield services in the Gorgan River Basin in the North of Iran by analyzing land cover changes from 1990 to 2020, using Landsat images and predicting up to 2040 with the Land Change Modeler and InVEST model under three scenarios: continuation, conservation, and mitigation. The results indicate significant shifts in agricultural land impacted water yields, which fluctuated from 324.7 million cubic meters (MCM) in 1990 to 279.7 MCM in 2010, before rising to 320.1 MCM by 2020. The study uniquely assesses the effects of land use changes on water yields, projecting a 13.6 % increase in water yield by 2040 under the continuation scenario, a 3.9 % increase under conservation, and a 1.6 % decrease under mitigation, which limits changes on steep slopes to prevent soil erosion and floods. This underscores the interplay between land use, vegetation cover, and water yield, emphasizing strategic land management for water resource preservation and effective watershed management in the GRB.

Comments

This article was originally published in Heliyon, volume 10, issue 16, in 2024. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e35674

Peer Reviewed

1

Copyright

The authors

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License

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