Impacts of Land Use and Land Cover Change in a Mediterranean Mountainous Area on Surface Runoff During the Period 1945 – 2018

Changes in land use and land coverage strongly interrelated with changes in runoff. The effects of land use and land cover change on peak surface runoff and sediment loss, was investigated in a mountainous catchment, namely Lakka catchment located in Thessalia region in Greece.Most of the Lakka catchment is covered by pastures, agricultural, forest and seminatural areas. Land cover of the study area for the years 1945, 1960, 1996, 2007 and 2018 was captured by the method of the photointerpretation, using the appropriate pairs of the aerial photographs and the stereoscopic glasses (SA030-4X), and by the method resulting from the use of the datasets produced by the Copernicus land cover program. The aim of the study is to investigate the evolution of peak runoff discharge during the period 1945-2018, against a background of land use and land cover change. The Natural Resources Conservation Service – CNmethod was utilized in order to estimate peak runoff discharge while the sediment transfer was also estimated. Agricultural land area was found to be significantly increased, against forest and seminatural areas during the study period, resulting to an increase of peak surface runoff, which may cause flood problems in the downstream areas.