Modeling the impact of land use and climate change scenarios of on the hydrology of the upper Mara River, Kenya.

With the flow of the Mara River becoming increasingly erratic especially in the upper reaches, attention has been directed to land use change and climate variability as the major cause of this problem. The semi-distributed hydrological model Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) and Landsat imagery were utilized in the upper Mara River basin in order to 1) map existing field scale land use practices, 2) determine the impacts of land use change on water flux using plausible land use change scenarios; and 3) determine the impacts of rainfall and air temperature variations based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projections on the water flux of the upper Mara River This study found that the different scenarios impacted the water budget components differently. Land use changes resulted in a slightly more erratic discharge while rainfall and air temperature changes had a more predictable impact on the discharge and water balance components. These findings demonstrate that the model results show the flow was more sensitive to the rainfall changes than land use changes. It was also shown that land use changes can reduce dry season flow which is the most important problem in the basin. The model shows also deforestation in the Mau Forest increased the peak flows which can also lead to high sediment loading in the Mara River.

Bibliographic Details

Main Authors:	Mango, L.M., Melesse, A.M., McClain, M.E., Gann, D., Setegn, S.G.
Format:	Report biblioteca
Language:	English
Published:	Florida International University 2010
Subjects:	Climatic changes, Modelling, Land use, River discharge, Hydrology,
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/1834/7309
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