Impact of land - use change on water resources: Balquhidder catchments

The Institute of Hydrology lumped conceptual model uses rainfall and flow records to optimise a number of parameters controlling interception, soil and channel stores. Land use in the catchment (e.g. heather, grassland and mature forest) is accounted for by using different interception and transpiration rates for different land uses. The model was applied to climate and discharge data from the two Institute of Hydrology experimental catchments at Balquhidder to predict the sensitivity of a number of water resource measures to land-use change. This was achieved by deriving flow duration curves, annual minima series and storage-yield relationships for simulated flow records for varous land-use scenarios. The results are presented in a form which allows the scale of the impact of land-use change on water resources to be estimated for regions of the UK with a similar climate and catchment response to the Balquhidder area.