Remote sensing- and GIS-based runoff modeling with the effect of land-use changes (a case study of Cochin corporation)

A study was conducted to estimate the runoff in urbanized zone using Soil Conservation Services Curve Number (SCS-CN) method through remote sensing and GIS techniques. In this study, the region was identified as Cochin Corporation (Kerala State, India) with an aerial extent of 96.44 km2. The spatial and non-spatial data were collected from different sources, and the thematic layers of soil hydrologic group and land-use maps were prepared and overlaid with one other. The overlaid output results were assigned by curve numbers with respect to soil and land-use categories, and the CN map was prepared with the help of Visual Basic (VB) language in ArcGIS platform. Through supervised classifications, 13 different land-use classes were identified from Quickbird data for the year of 2005 and 2010. The most prominent land-use classes were water bodies, residential, mixed crops, commercial and industrial, and 3 types of soil hydrologic groups were identified namely A, B, and C categories. The B group is most prominent occupying 60 km2 of the study area. The CN map shows the ranges that 92–100 is the major CN area with high runoff potential zone of the study region. At the final stage, the runoff was estimated by the maximum successive rainfall received in this study area in two different years—2005 and 2010 along with their land-use pattern. The runoff model is applied for temporal variation in land-use change, and impact of runoff was studied. The study area showed significant changes in land-use pattern between 2005 and 2010 particularly in the land-use change from agricultural into industrial, commercial, and residential (high density). The area covered by the highest runoff depth with the range of 92–100 CN values increased from 43.87 to 45.32 km2 from 2005 to 2010. The volume of runoff was increased from 135.56 to 141.49 Mm3 from 2005 to 2010 due to the land-use change pattern.