Evaluation of the Land use Change Impact on Hydrologic Characteristics (Case Study: Kasilian Watershed)

The land use change is one of the major challenges of the human communities in this century and even more its impacts are than the climate change phenomenon. Land use change influences run-off as well as the other hydrologic factors such as interception, infiltration and the flood intensity. This study is aimed to investigate the impact of last 30 years of land use changes on hydrological behavior in the Kasilian watershed. Satellite data of Land sat MSS, ETM and IRS LISSIII were used to detect land use change for the years of 1977, 2001 and 2007 respectively. The extracted results from this period a declination trend in the forest cover which was the cause of the increase in the runoffs identified in HEC-HMS used model. After calibration and validation of the used model for the indicated timescales, it shows that the deforestation impacts was increased the peak discharge to 2.11 m3 and also the run-off volume to 98.81 m3.