Investigation into impacts of land-use changes on floods in the upper Huaihe River basin, China

To investigate the agricultural land-use change on flood regime, the upper Huaihe River basin above the Dapoling station was selected as the case study site. Based on topography, land-use, hydrological and meteorological data in 1990s and 2010s, the improved distributed Xinanjiang model, with potential evapotranspiration being computed by coupling a dual-source evapotranspiration model with a simplified plant growth model, was adopted to simulate the daily and hourly rainfall-runoff processes over 1990s and 2010s, and then the effects of land-use change on flood volume, flood peak, occurring time of flood peak, the percentage of surface runoff component were investigated respectively. The results was interesting and indicated that impacts of land-use change on flood characteristics varied significantly with land-use types. The outputs could provide valuable references for flood risk management and water resources management in the Huaihe River basin.