Quantifying the impact of land use changes on surface runoff in the Loess Plateau area of Northwest China by SWAT.

Rapid socio-economic development has precipitated substantial transformations in land use and land cover (LUCC) within the Yanhe River basin, significantly impacting production dynamics, confluence mechanisms, and the basin's runoff response processes. To elucidate the runoff response patterns under varying land use/land cover change conditions, this study analyzed the land use change characteristics from 1980 to 2020. Employed the SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) model, and simulated the precipitation-runoff dynamics under five distinct land use scenarios to scrutinize the basin's runoff response to varying land use conditions.