The effect of land use change on surface water quality under the wet and dry years in a semi-arid catchment (case study: the Godarkhosh catchment)

Rivers are one of the most critical and common supplies for drinking water, agricultural, and industrial uses. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of land use changes on surface water quality of the Godarkhosh River as a semi-arid catchment in Iran, during dry and wet years using remote sensing, GIS and multivariate statistical techniques and compared the water quality parameters with Wilcox classification and Schuler diagram for classification of drinking water quality. Results showed that urban and barren land uses were the key factor affecting water quality variation. More minor water quality was accompanied with a more proportion of the urban and barren land uses during the wet and dry years in the catchment. No significant correlation was identified between the pH, SAR, Cl− and Ca2+ values with the land use types in both wet and dry years, whereas the EC, TDS, and Mg2+ concentrations were strongly associated with at least one land use type. A negative correlation of the most water quality parameters was obtained with grasslands and forestlands, especially in the wet year compared with other land uses. Generally, it can be concluded that the relevances between water quality parameters and land use types were stronger in the dry year than that in the wet year. Also, the correlation analysis indicated that all water quality parameters had negative relationships with the river flows. Furthermore, most of the water quality variables showed the increasing trend over time based on Mann–Kendall trend analysis. The results of this research showed that a combination of remote sensing methods, geographic information systems and multivariate statistical techniques can provide an overview of the relationship between land use and water quality and recommend that water quality can be betterment with suitable land use management.