Development and allocation of land-use scenarios in agriculture for hydrological impact studies

In order to study the impacts of Global Change induced future agricultural land-use patterns on regional water dynamics and water quality, the spatial and temporal crop distribution under present and under scenario conditions is needed. The development of land-use changes inside the arable areas was simulated by a bottom-up approach basing on the analysis of adaptation reactions of farmers. A Geographic Information System-based approach was developed, that performs a spatial allocation of these crop schemes, and reproduces the agricultural fruit patterns and rotation cycles. This so called crop generator was applied to the Thuringian Basin in Germany and the distributed eco-hydrological model ArcEGMO was run to simulate the water dynamics in the basin of the Upper Unstrut for the political frame of the European Union's AGENDA 2000. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.