Understanding the influence of land cover change and landscape pattern change on evapotranspiration variations in Gwayi catchment of Zimbabwe
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Date
2022
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Taylor and Francis Group
Abstract
Understanding dynamics in hydrological processes helps toimprove water resource management. Climate and land coverchanges influence ecohydrological processes. This study soughtto assess the influence of climate, land cover and landscape struc-ture dynamics on actual evapotranspiration (ETa). To achieve this,the catchment parameter (w) was parameterised and the relation-ship between ETa and selected landscape metrics was deter-mined. The ratio of precipitation to potential evapotranspirationwas<1 and thewwas<2, suggesting that land cover changeswere more influential to ETa changes than climate variations.Given the loww(1<w<2), we conclude that the catchment hada low water retention capacity and was sensitive to land coverchanges.
Description
Keywords
Ecohydrology, Ecology, Environmental change, Water security, Zimbabwe
Citation
Gwate, O. et al. (2022). Understanding the influence of land cover change and landscape pattern change on evapotranspiration variations in Gwayi catchment of Zimbabwe. Geocarto International, 37(25), 10016–10032. https://doi.org/10.1080/10106049.2022.2032386