فهرست نشریات علمی دسترسی آزاد ایران

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Land use and land cover change is a major driver of hydrological change, particularly in mountainous basins where hydropower production depends on reliable streamflow. The Suki Kinari Hydropower Project on Pakistan’s Kunhar River is a run-of-river facility that is highly sensitive to such variations. The study objectives were to evaluate the impact of past and projected land use and land cover change on streamflow to provide insights for watershed management and sustainable hydropower operations. METHODS: The soil and water assessment tool were employed to simulate streamflow dynamics under future land use scenarios. The model was calibrated for the period 2000–2011 and validated for 2012–2016 against monthly discharge data from the Garhi Habibullah gauging station. Future land use and land cover projections for 2052 and 2082 were generated using a cellular Automata-Markov chain model based on historical transition probabilities from 1992, 2002, and 2012 satellite observations. FINDINGS: The soil and water assessment tool model demonstrated acceptable performance for monthly simulations (Calibration: R² = 0.64, Nash–Sutcliffe Efficiency = 0.62; Validation: R² = 0.61, Nash–Sutcliffe Efficiency = 0.52). land use and land cover projections indicate a continuous expansion of urban areas (+400 percent by 2082), agricultural land (+72 percent), and barren land (+3.8 percent), driven by deforestation (-38 percent) and grassland degradation. Under these projected changes, mean monthly streamflow is predicted to increase by 2.64 percent in 2052 and 7.54 percent in 2082, with peak runoffs shifting earlier in the year. CONCLUSION: The study reveals that future land use and land cover changes will significantly increase streamflow and runoff in the Kunhar River Basin, posing potential risks of sedimentation and flooding for the Suki Kinari Hydropower Project. The findings underscore the critical need for a dense hydro-meteorological monitoring network in the upper catchment and the integration of scenario-based modeling into water resources planning. Sustainable land management is essential to mitigate adverse hydrological impacts in mountainous basins.