Author(s): I. Zacharias; E. Dimitriou; T. Koussouris
Linked Author(s):
Keywords: Wetlands; Hydrologic modeling; Land use changes; Remote sensing
Abstract: Land use changes and associated hydrologic disturbances are common reasons for wetlands degradation worldwide. Today, there is a need to identify and quantify potential impacts on wetlands from specific land use alterations in order to facilitate future environmental management and preservation activities. The particular scientific effort utilized remotely sensed data, GIS techniques and hydrologic modeling to estimate land use alterations during a 40-years period as well as associated changes in hydrologic parameters such as overland flow, infiltration, evapotranspiration and water storages on ground surface. Aerial photos of the years 1947 and 1986 have been acquired, regarding an artificially modified area, elaborated with GIS software and provided the land use maps for each period. These maps have been imported to MIKE SHE hydrologic model and two simulations have been developed (one for each period). The same meteorological data have been used in both simulations so as to estimate the differences in the aforementioned hydrologic parameters caused by the land use changes only. The results indicated significant variations in the hydrologic regime including a 6% increase in the annual evapotranspiration and a 10% increase in the water deficit of the soil profile caused by a considerable increase of agricultural land. The urban development during the examined period, directed to an 11% increase in the annual overland flow and a consequent decrease in the underground flow towards wetland area. Thus, the detailed modeling results illustrated substantial impacts on the regional hydrology and consequently on the wetland areas due to the observed land use changes.
Year: 2003