Using land-cover change as dynamic variables in surface-water and water-quality models

Abstract

The timber industry has played a significant role in land-cover change in the Boston Mountains ecoregion. Generally, a land-cover class change from forest to mechanically-disturbed can be representative of forest cutting for development or timber harvesting. Forest cutting can have a significant effect on landsurface dynamics including rates of surface water runoff. Slope, aspect, flow direction, and land-cover multi-change data from 1973 to 2000 for the ecoregion sample blocks was organized in ArcGIS to analyze the effects of landcover change on magnitudes of change in peak flows at streamgages.