TARA DEVI HARAKH CHAND KANKARIA

JAIN COLLEGE

HUMAN INDUCED LAND USE CHANGE

AND ITS GLOBAL IMPACT

NAME:- DEEP SHANKAR DAS

CALCUTTA UNIVERSITY ROLL NO:- 201235-21-0388
CALCUTTA UNIVERSITY REGISTRATION NO:- 235-1112-
0662-20
CLASS ROLL NO:- 655 SECTION:- 2F DAY

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Presentation inspiration and motivation have
always played a key role in success of any
venture.
I express my sincere thanks to Dr. Mausumi
Singh, Principal, THK Jain Collage.
I pay my deep sense of gratitude to guide Prof.
Anjali Gupta. (HOD) ,THK Jain Collage. To
encourage me to the highest peak and to provide
me the opportunity to prepaid the project. I am
immensely obliged to my friends for their elevating
inspiration, encouraging guidance and kind
supervision in the completion of my project.
I feel to acknowledge my indebtedness and deep
sense of gratitude to my guide Mrs. Aparajita
Mukherjee whose valuable guidance and kind
supervision given to me throughout the course
which shaped the present work as it’s show.
Last but not the least My Parents are also my
important inspiration for me. So with due regards, I
express my gratitude to them.
Thanking You
Deep Shankar Das
Roll No: 655 Signature of Mentor

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 INDEX
SERIAL NO PARTICULARS PAGE NO
01 ABSTRACT 04

02 INTRODUCTION 05

03 OBJECTIVE OF 13
THE STUDY

04 STUDY AREA 14
WITH THE
SPECIFIC
LOCATION

05 IMPORTANCE 18
OF THE
PROJECT

06 METHODOLOGY 23

07 RESULTS AND 25
DISCUSSION

08 CONCLUSION 30

09 BIBLIOGRAPHY 31

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 ABSTRACT
The LULC change vis-à-vis climate change
inherently encompassing human dimensions
consequently impact hydrological processes. A
slight change in it may affect the water yield, as
both are explicitly linked through various
hydrological processes. The future availability of
water resources largely depends upon planning
and management of land use in this changing
environment. However, the continuous human
interactions keep on modifying the land use land
cover (LULC) to fulfil the enhanced demand
especially due to significant increase in population
and development towards better facilities. These
changes consequently impact each and every
hydrological process vis-à-vis water availability.It
has now become a major concern for water
resources planners and managers. Moreover,
these changes in LULC pattern along with
changing climate put forth a huge challenge in
front of them. The present study investigates the
capabilities of Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC)
model, which has been developed as soil-
vegetation-atmosphere transfer schemes, to
assess the runoff potential. Initially, the required
model inputs were derived and simulated at the
national scale.
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 INTRODUCTION
1) Definition of Land use and Land cover
change
The Basin wise water resources potential for the
India was assessed based on empirical
approaches long back. However, over a period of
time, climate has significantly changed; and
simultaneous due to the developmental activities
going on in the country, land use land cover
(LULC) pattern in each river basins has been
modified.

2) Hydrological Behaviour
The LULC and climate are two important aspects
that govern the hydrological behaviour of any
region. The slight change in LULC, affects the
resultant energy fluxes of the region thereby
altering the climate. Such change influences the
precipitation and temperature (the fundamental
driving parameters of the hydrological cycle)
pattern locally, in turn, all other hydrological
processes such as evapotranspiration (ET),
ground water recharge and overland.The studies
have already shown that LULC change is the main
driver for changes in hydrological processes, viz.

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ET, stream flow, accumulation and snowmelt
processes globally. On the other hand, the climatic
variability and change also force changes in LULC
pattern.

3) Problems of land use and Land cover

change
A) Biodiversity Factor
The cause-and-effect relationship between these
two processes has significant environmental
implications, such as loss of biodiversity,
alterations in hydrological processes, land
degradation and its impact on agriculture, etc. The
main contributor to global to local scale LULC and
climate changes are the anthropogenic activities.
The human-induced alteration to LULC
characteristics and climate change together can
affect hydrological processes, substantially.

B) Climatic Factor
The LULC and climate govern the hydrological
behaviour of the basin through a complex
relationship involving a large variety of interaction
at different spatio-temporal scales. These
interactions can be best handled through physical-

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based, spatially distributed hydrological model
capable of simulating multi-layered hydrological
processes. All the hydrological processes are
either directly or indirectly governed by a large
number of land surface biophysical and climatic
variables.

4) Development by Researchers
In recent past, researchers have developed
models known as soil-vegetation-atmosphere
transfer schemes (SVATS) to accommodate the
spatial and vertical process of energy and mass
balance in the climate and weather forecast
models.The Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC)
model developed initially by Liang et al. (1994) is
also a member of SVATS. It is a grid based semi-
distributed macroscale land surface model,
capable of solving hydrological processes using
energy balance or water balance approach.

A) Models used by Researchers

As it is a distributed type of model, the grid
resolution for the VIC model, typically, ranges from
1/8 to 2 degree).The VIC model has been used in
a large number of hydrological studies at various
spatial scales (from watershed to global) in
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different climatic regions. These studies revealed
that it has potential to simulate hydrology of large
and complex river basins. Quite a good number of
research articles on the use of VIC for assessment
of the impact of LULC and climate change on
hydrology can also be found in the literature. The
studies strongly advocated the use of VIC model
for simulating the hydrological response of large
river basins to understand the impact towards
LULC and climate changes.

5) Effects of land use change on ecosystem

and climate
The cumulative impacts of climate and LULC
change are likely to be severe in developing
countries due to poor adaptability.Many river
basins of India, where drastic LULC change has
taken place in the last century, have been facing
adverse reoccurring hydro-meteorological
extremes,(floods and droughts) in the recent
times. The long-term climate and LULC changes in
the basin are the main reasons for such changes
in the hydrological regime. In addition to this, the
developmental activities pursued throughout the
country are expected to put additional stress on
future water availability.

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Hence, there is a need to understand the impacts
of such changes on water resources availability so
as to evolve suitable adaptation strategies.
Considering the significance and linkages of LULC
change with global climate, a comprehensive
nation-wide study aiming at understanding the
spatial dynamics and drivers of LULC change was
initiated within the framework of ISRO-Geosphere
Biosphere Programme (ISRO-GBP). The aim of
the study was to assess the runoff potential of
each river basin and to analyse the impact of
LULC change on it.

6) Mitigation of Land use change and land

cover change
A wide range of LULUCF mitigation options are
being put forward by the Parties to reduce
emissions and increase removals from this sector.
The NDCs state options such as reducing
deforestation, increasing afforestation, improving
sustainable forest management, and enhancing
forest carbon stock.
Strategies immediately available to mitigate
carbon emissions and to limit land use activities
include the following:

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(i)Reforestation (growing forests where they
recently existed)
(ii) Afforestation (growing forests where they did
not recently exist)
(iii) Increasing carbon density of existing forests
(iv) Reducing emissions from deforestation and
degradation.
Other proposed strategies include wood bioenergy
production, bioenergy combined with carbon
capture and storage (BECCS), and increasing
wood product use in buildings.

7) Causes of land use and land cover change

A) Population pressure, demand for fuel wood and
construction material, agricultural expansion and
policy and tenure insecurity were the major driving
forces behind the land use/cover change.

B) Environmental and local livelihoods implications

such as lake water and its aquatic resources and
soil degradation, biodiversity loss and forest cover
decline are resulted from the changes.

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8) Government steps to control land use and
land cover change

A) Land Use matters

A) Land use is a key policy area that can further
economic, environmental and social goals.
B) Land use has consequences for public health
as it influences air quality and pollution.
C)Land and buildings account for the most
important share of wealth in the OECD (86% of the
total capital stock).

B) Policies Influence land Use

A) Land use planning and regulation restricts how
land can be used.
B) Tax policies can provide incentives to guide
land use by encouraging compact development
and prevent urban sprawl.
C) National governments should decide on
incentives when designing their fiscal and land use
planning systems.
D) Misguided incentives can cause local
governments to pursue planning policies that raise
housing costs and suburban sprawl.

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C) More flexible Approaches to planning are
needed
A) More flexible planning laws can help transform
land areas towards more efficient and innovative
uses.
B) Restrictive land use regulations can be a major
cause property bubbles.
C) Land use regulations should ensure that
housing construction can keep pace with
population growth.
D) Land use regulations should encourage
increased density, especially in low-density areas
close city centres as well as along public transport
corridors.
E) Urban growth boundaries should be adjusted in
response to growing populations.
F) If housing is built on greenfield sites, it should
be compact and transport oriented.

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 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
The primary aim of this is to provide an analysis of
coastal land use changes by presenting temporal
variations of land use changes in the coastal areas
along with contemporary uses of coastal land. The
discussion of drivers of coastal land use changes
as well as a discussion of coastal management
efforts undertaken in India is also the motive.

Thus, Land use change is a process by which

human activities transform the natural landscape,
referring to how land has been used, usually
emphasizing the functional role of land for
economic activities. Land use changes are often
nonlinear and might trigger feedbacks to the
system, stress living conditions, and threaten
people with vulnerability.Therefore, not only do
land use change trajectories need assessment,
but also possible future conditions must be
projected for certain assumptions, both basic to
ensuring sustainable conditions.
The studies strongly advocated the use of VIC
model for simulating the hydrological response of
large river basins to understand the impact
towards LULC and climate changes.

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 STUDY AREA WITH THE
SPECIFIC LOCATION
The present study is divided into two parts based
on its objectives:
(i) Assessment of nationwide runoff potential;
and
(ii) A detailed LULC change impact
assessment on river basin hydrology.
India (20.5937° N, 78.9629° E) is a vast country
endowed with high mountains, extensive plateaus,
wide plains traversed by mighty rivers and oceans.
All these topographical features of the region
influence the climatic system. Due to which the
availability of water in the country is highly erratic
both spatially and temporally.

A) The Surface Runoff Potential of all the major

river basins of the India
The country receives around 4000 km3 of water
annually through precipitation over its landmass.
However, the surface runoff potential of all the
major river basins of the country, as per the
assessment done by Central Water Commission
(CWC), is around 1869 km3. It has been estimated
that around 1122 km3 is being used for beneficial
14
purposes wherein the share of surface water and
ground water is 690 km3 and 433 km3,
respectively.

B) Utilization of surface water resources

In the majority of river basins, utilization of surface
water resources is significantly high and ranges
from 50 to 95%.In India, the national per capita
annual availability of water is 1545 m3 as on 2011.
However, the per capita water availability
scenarios is not similar in all the river basins. The
value ranges from as high as 13,407 m3 in
Brahmaputra and Barak Basin to as low as 263
m3 in Sabarmati Basin (CWC, 2017).
Brahmaputra and Barak Basin occupies 7.6% of
the geographical area and supports around 5.2%
of the population of the country, however it has
31% of the annual available water resources of the
country.

C) Divisions of Basin
A large part of the country, excluding Brahmaputra
and Barak Basin, is water stressed with per capita
annual availability of about 1345 m3 (CWC, 2017).
The basins namely Cauvery, Sabarmati, East

15
flowing rivers and west flowing rivers fall in water
stressed category.Therefore, it is essential to
analyse the runoff potential of each basin regularly
using physically based distributed hydrological
model, so that, further studies with respect to
LULC or climate change can be carried out. In first
part of the present study, the entire country is
divided into 14 river basins as shown in Fig. 1.

FIGURE 1
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D) Units of The Study
The river basins are taken as units of the study
owing to their characteristic physiography,
hydrology, climate and anthropogenic influence
thus leading to typical LULC change processes
and their impacts on hydrological regime.

E) Impact of LULC change on the hydrological

regime
The river basins are as per the watershed atlas of
All India Soil and Land Use Survey, and include
different sub-basins. However, to quantify the
impact of LULC change on the hydrological regime
of the Indian River basin, the Pennar River Basin
(including basins of all the eastward flowing river
between Krishna & Pennar Basins and between
Pennar & Cauvery Basin) was selected. The
location of the Pennar basin considered in the
present study can been seen in Fig. 1. In the basin
considered for the analysis, the major river is
Pennar River.

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 IMPORTANCE OF THE
PROJECT
1) Global Warming
Land cover change is one of the main reasons for
Global warming. As the humans settlement is
increasing humans are cutting down forest for
construction of households, buildings etc. As a
result the trees which stores carbon-dioxide are all
released into the atmosphere (carbon-dioxide is
one of the Global warming gases) and increasing
the Global temperature. Global warming was first
recognized in 19th century with time it was
increasing gradually and now in 21st century it has
become a “GLOBAL PHENOMENA”.

2) Increasing Temperature
Global warming is expected to have far-reaching,
long-lasting and, in many cases, devastating
consequences for planet Earth. Global warming is
the increase in temperatures around the world.
The average global temperature has increased by
about 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 degrees
Celsius) over the past 100 years, according to the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA). Since record keeping began in 1895, the
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hottest year on record worldwide was 2016,
according to NOAA and NASA data. That year
Earth's surface temperature was 1.78 degrees F
(0.99 degrees C) warmer than the average across
the entire 20th century. Before 2016, 2015 was the
warmest year on record, globally. In fact, 16 of the
17 warmest years on record have happened since
2001, according to NASA.

3) Effects of Global warming

A) Extreme Weather
Extreme weather is another effect of global
warming. While experiencing some of the hottest
summers on record, much of the United States
has also been experiencing colder-than-normal
winters. The anticipated increase in precipitation,
the melting of glaciers and expanding seas have
the power to influence the Indian climate
negatively, with an increase in incidence of floods,
hurricanes, and storms. Global warming may also
pose a significant threat to the food security
situation in India.

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B) Climatic Change
Changes in climate can cause the polar jet stream
— the boundary between the cold North Pole air
and the warm equatorial air — to migrate south,
bringing with it cold, Arctic air. This is why some
states can have a sudden cold snap or colder-
than-normal winter, even during the long-term
trend of global warming.

C) One of the primary manifestations of climate

change so far is melt.
North America, Europe and Asia have all seen a
trend toward less snow cover between 1960 and
2015, according to 2016 research published in the
journal Current Climate Change Reports.
According to the National Snow and Ice Data
Center, there is now 10 percent less permafrost, or
permanently frozen ground, in the Northern
Hemisphere than there was in the early 1900s.
The thawing of permafrost can cause landslides
and other sudden land collapses. It can also
release long-buried microbes, as in a 2016 case
when a cache of buried reindeer carcasses
thawed and caused an outbreak of Anthrax.

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D) Reduction in Arctic Sea Ice
One of the most dramatic effects of global
warming is the reduction in Arctic sea ice. Sea ice
hit record-low extents in both the fall and winter of
2015 and 2016, meaning that at the time when the
ice is supposed to be at its peak, it was lagging.
The melt means there is less thick sea ice that
persists for multiple years. That means less heat is
reflected back into the atmosphere by the shiny
surface of the ice and more is absorbed by the
comparatively darker ocean, creating a feedback
loop that causes even more melt, according to
NASA's Operation Ice Bridge.

E) Glacial Retreat
Glacial retreat is an obvious effect of global
warming. Only 25 glaciers bigger than 25 acres
are now found in Montana's Glacier National Park,
where about 150 glaciers were once found,
according to the U.S. Geological Survey. A similar
trend is seen in glacial areas worldwide. According
to a 2016 study in the journal Nature Geoscience,
there is a 99 percent likelihood that this rapid
retreat is due to human-caused climate change.
Some glaciers retreated up to 15 times as much
as they would have without global warming.

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Global sea levels have risen about 8 inches since
1870, according to the EPA, and the rate of
increase is expected to accelerate in the coming
years. If current trends continue, many coastal
areas, where roughly half of the Earth's human
population lives, will be inundated.

F) Effect on Earth’s Ecosystem

(i) The effects of global warming on the Earth's
ecosystems are expected to be profound and
widespread. Many species of plants and animals
are already moving their range northward or to
higher altitudes as a result of warming
temperatures, according to a report from the
National Academy of Sciences.

(ii) As dramatic as the effects of climate change

are expected to be on the natural world, the
projected changes to human society may be even
more devastating.

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 METHODOLOGY
1) Nationwide runoff potential assessment
Initially, an attempt has been made to setup and
validate the VIC hydrological model for Indian
conditions for assessing its runoff potential. The
VIC 4.0.6 version of the model has been used in
the present study. The Indian landmass was
divided into 4707 active grids of each
25 km × 25 km, as shown in Fig.1 to model the
hydrological fluxes of each grid using VIC.

2) Topography
The VIC model requires information on
topography, soil, vegetation cover, bio-physical
characteristics of vegetation cover and
meteorological condition of each grid. All this
information are provided to the model in the form
of input parameter files (soil parameter file,
vegetation parameter file and vegetation library)
and meteorological forcing files.
The soil parameter file is a primary input file of the
VIC model indicating, model grid number, its active
status (whether the grid is active in the model run
or not), its geographical location (central latitude,
longitude, average elevation), texture of majority

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soil type in the grid and depth of each soil layer, all
the hydrological properties of soil in each depth
zone. In the present study, the soil texture
information and bulk densities were derived from
the National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use
Planning (NBSS&LUP) digitized soil map.

3) Parameters
The topographic parameters namely elevation and
slope of each grid were derived from GTopo30
digital elevation model.The pedo-transfer functions
suggested by Cosby et al. (1984) and algorithms
suggested by Rawls et al. (1998), and Reynolds et
al. (2000) were used to estimate parameters such
as porosity, saturated soil potential, saturated
hydraulic conductivity, the exponent for
unsaturated flow, field capacity, wilting point, and
saturated hydraulic conductivity for all the soil
present in the study domain.

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 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
A) Basin Average Runoff Potential
The daily hydrological simulation of entire India
has been carried out at macro scale adopting
established VIC model for all the LULC under
consideration. However, as the initial LULC map
(as a base map) was generated on the LULC
dataset of the year 2005, the results obtained for
this LULC scenario are represented and analysed
here. The hydrological components such as runoff
potential, baseflow and ET are determined at each
grid and later are averaged basin wise as shown in
Fig 2.

FIGURE 2

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B) Models for River Basins In India
The same setup of the model has been run for
different river basins of India and reported high
model efficiency and performance. The calibrated
and validated model for Krishna River Basin
achieved coefficient of determination (R2) as 0.95,
0.87, 0.81, 0.86 at hydrological observation
stations namely Huvinhedgi, Terwad, Karad and
Arjunwad with Nash-Sutcliffe model efficiency of
0.95, 0.64, 0.75, 0.85 for respective stations.
On the other hand, the model performed very well
with R2 value of 0.86, 0.86, 0.93 and 0.88 for
Jhondra, Kantamal, Kotni and Rajim stations of
Mahanadi Basin, respectively. The Nash-Sutcliffe
model efficiency in these station varied from 0.76
to 0.99.

C) Runoff potential of most of the Indian River

basins
At the outlet station Bhadrachalam of Godavari
Basin and Nellore of Pennar Basin, the model
accuracy was as high as 0.9 in terms of R2. It was
found that the estimated annual average surface
runoff potential of most of the Indian River basins
match very well with the CWC estimate.

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However, the CWC estimate of annual average
surface runoff potential of entire India (1869 km3
for all the river basins) does not match with the
results of the present study (1205.41 km3). It is to
be noted that if the contribution of water from
snow/glacier melt, international boundary and
other rivers, which was not included in the present
analysis, is added in the estimates of the present
study, the annual runoff potential of the country will
then be 1851.41 km3. The slight difference
between the two estimates may mainly attributed
to the difference in the method of estimation in
each case.

D) Estimation by CWC
The CWC estimated the annual water potential
using empirical water balance approach, however,
in the present study, the distributed physically
based hydrological modeling was used. The map
of spatial variation of estimated runoff potential
can also be produced as shown in Fig 3.

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 FIGURE 3

E) Spatial variation of estimated average

annual runoff over Indian landmass
It can be noticed from Fig. 3 that the catchment of
westward flowing rivers from Narmada Basin to
Cauvery Basin are falling in high runoff potential
region, which holds good as per Indian conditions.
Similarly, Central, Eastern and North Eastern parts
of India are showing high runoff potential, which is
28
a mainly due to Indian monsoon distribution and
terrain characteristics of these regions.

F) Western Part of India

The western part of India especially Rajasthan
state and north western part of Gujarat state, are
showing low runoff potential as these regions fall
under arid/semi-arid regions. However, against
general expectations, the higher reaches of North
West Himalaya are showing low runoff potential as
most of this region is snow or glaciers covered,
and its contribution has not been considered for
runoff potential estimation in the present analysis.
The successful simulation of VIC hydrological
model over entire Indian landmass provided the
impetus to apply this hydrological model at basin
scale and to study the impact of LULC change on
hydrology.

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 CONCLUSION
In the present study, the VIC model, a member of
soil-vegetation-atmosphere-transfer scheme, has
been investigated for Indian condition. Initially, the
VIC model has been run in water balance mode to
estimate water resources potential of major river
basins of India. It was noticed that the outputs
(surface water potential) of the physically based
hydrological model are well in agreement with the
observed/published records. If the contribution
from snow/glacier melt, international trans-
boundary and other minor river considered in the
present analysis, the estimation of annual water
potential comes around 1851.41 km3 which is very
close to 1869 km3, published value by CWC. In
fact, in the changing environment the estimation of
surface water potential using distributed physically
based models, such as VIC, are more appropriate
than the traditional empirical approach. Human-
induced developments have aggravated the LULC
changes, which in turn influence hydrology,
subsequently, the availability and demand of
water. In developing countries, like India, where
the economy is dominated by the agricultural
sector, these changes become more noticeable.

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 BIBLIOGRAPHY
 Abdulla, F.A., Lettenmaier, D.P Wood, E.F Smith, J.A.,
1996.
Application of a macroscale hydrologic model to estimate the
water balance of the Arkansas-Red river basin.J. Geophys.
Res. 101 (D3), 7449–7459.
 Aggarwal, S.P Garg, V Gupta, P.K Nikam, B.R Thakur,
P.K 2012.
Climate and LULC change scenarios to study its impact on
hydrological regime. Int. Arch. Photogram.
 Aggarwal, S.P., Garg V Gupta, P.K Nikam, B.R Thakur,
P.K Roy, P.S 2013.
Runoff potential assessment over Indian landmass: a macro-
scale hydrological modeling approach.
 Dadhwal,V.K Aggarwal, S.P Misra, N., 2010.
Hydrological simulation of Mahanadi River basin and impact of
landuse/landcover change on surface runoff using a macro
scale hydrological model.
 DeFries, R Eshleman, K.N., 2004.
Land-use change and hydrologic processes: a major focus for
the future.

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THANK YOU

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