Effect of land use changes on water run-off from a small catchment in the Czech Republic

Abstract

The changes in the landscape during past years were affected mainly by political and financial conditions in the agricultural sector as well as the future changes probably will be. For this study various scenarios of changes in land use in the small catchment caused by human activity were simulated. Several scenarios were focused on changes of agricultural area to urbanized landscape and also on industrial use of several plots. The aim of this study was to model and assess the impact of human-induced landscape changes on run-off from small catchments in the traditional agricultural area. It can be said, that more than the change of land use itself, changed management of these areas affects the water run-off more. The hypothetical transfer of significant part of the catchment area or the localities with infiltration vulnerable zones into urbanized paved space is the only exception. This change mainly affects the rate of discharge.