Assessment of Changes in River Flow and Ecohydrological Indicators From the Viewpoint of Changing Landscape Patterns in the Jialing River Basin, China

Land use alterations significantly affect the hydrological processes in basins. Few studies, however, examine how future runoff variations and river ecohydrological indices may be affected by changes in regional land use from the standpoint of landscape pattern change (LPC). In this research, we combined historical land use data and future data modelled by the PLUS model to isolate six major landscape pattern indices by principal component analysis, which were used together with meteorological data to drive the long short-term memory network (LSTM) for runoff simulation. Therefore, the daily flow processes were obtained under different scenarios. The driving mechanisms of runoff changes and the changes in ecohydrological indicators were explored in conjunction with the daily flow process. The study shows that from 1980 to 2030, the Jialing River Basin's pattern of land use has seen substantial changes over time, and the landscape pattern tends to be further fragmented in 2030, the influence of the fragmentation of the pattern in the landscape makes the daily flow under the LSTM model's prediction of the natural development scenario smaller than that of the ecological protection scenario, the scenario backtracking method reveals that the LPC is the main driver of the future runoff change, and the changes and ecological impacts of river ecohydrological indicators were different in different scenarios. The study's findings can act as a foundation for land use planning, regulation of terrace reservoirs and sustainable development in the Jialing River Basin (JRB).