Comparative analysis of hydrological impacts from climate and land use/land cover changes in a lowland mesoscale catchment

The hydrological processes within the catchment are generally influenced by both climate change (CC) and land use/land cover (LULC) change. However, most of the studies are focused on their individual impact on the catchment’s hydrology, while their combined effects have received little attention. This study employs the physically based distributed hydrological model, MIKE SHE, to study the separate and combined effect of climate and LULC change on the hydrology of a mesoscale catchment in the near future (2050s). An Artificial Neural Network–Cellular Automata (ANN-CA) based prediction model was trained to simulate the future LULC map. The future meteorological data under four CC scenarios was obtained from the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI). The model results showed that the combined effects of CC with LULC changes did not significantly differ from the individual impact of CC on the catchment scale. However, on the local scale, the changes in LULC can significantly influence the variations in groundwater table, soil moisture, and actual evapotranspiration ranging from approximately–6–15%,–9–27%, and–30–10% respectively, depending on the specific change in LULC class and season. In summary, this research provides valuable insights into the complex interactions between LULC changes, CC, and hydrology.