11. Impact of Land Use and Land Cover in Water Resources

The assessment of the influence of land use cover on river water quality is a prerequisite for long-term river basin planning and management. Non-point source (NPS) contamination from agricultural watersheds has recently considerably deteriorated the water quality of major rivers. Due to the intricate interconnections of various impacting elements, water quality management remains a difficulty. Even though the impacts of land use types on water quality have earned a great deal of attention, handful of researchers have tried to define the connection between water body attributes and water quality, and the relationships between water bodies and other land use types on water quality have earned a lot of interest. In this work, we have tried to give an idea on the impact of Land use Land cover (LUCL) on the water resources, along with various modeling and monitoring techniques used for the same. As a result, we tried to put forward various techniques to reduce the impact of various LULC on the water resources along with future scope of work that could bring in value addition in the domain of water resource-related research. People dealing with hydrology, land use designers, watershed supervisors, and decision-makers require precise data on the ecological reaction to land use change in order to plan long-term water management programs and ecosystem services. As a result, policymakers, designers, and users must design methods to ensure long-term viability of the watershed hydrology in order to protect agricultural activities and urban planning and management systems inside the catchment region.