Impacts of land use changes on discharge and water quality in rivers and streams: Case study of the continental United States

Abstract

Water quality trends in streams and rivers are impacted by several factors including land use of the watershed; however, it is unclear what influence changes in the land use of a watershed subsequently have on changes in discharge and water quality in streams and rivers. This study seeks to fill this gap by evaluating the relationship between changes in land use and changes in discharge and water quality at United States Geological Survey (USGS) stream gages over the period of 2008–2016. Using land cover data and discharge and water quality data from 60 USGS gages, regression methods were applied to determine the strength of relationship between land use changes and changes in water quality and quantity. Trends in discharge and water quality were mixed, with a majority of watersheds demonstrating a decrease in dissolved oxygen and turbidity, no overall trend for discharge, and increases in specific conductance. A regression analysis revealed that discharge, turbidity, and specific conductance were correlated with changes in individual land use types with an R² between 0.12 and 0.25. Combining the influences of multiple land uses in multivariate regression improved the predictions for discharge (R² 0.58) and specific conductance (R² 0.47), highlighting the magnitude for which land cover changes influence trends in water quality. Overall, this study demonstrates the impact that large-scale land use changes have on surface water quality.