Impacts of land use changes on hydrological components and macroinvertebrate distributions in the Poyang lake area

Land use and land cover changes are important issues globally resulting in changing hydrological and ecological conditions. In addition to field sampling and measurements, we applied a model cascade comprising an ecohydrological model and a species distribution model. We developed five land use scenarios (three deforestation and two afforestation scenarios) for our Chinese study basin in the Poyang lake area. In detail, we assessed the impact of land use changes on the hydrologic regime and stream macroinvertebrate distributions for the most likely deforestation scenario. Simulated deforestation scenarios result in higher streamflow and surface runoff compared with the base model. The spatial distribution of stream macroinvertebrates, a group of organisms well known as water quality indicators, was modelled to describe the effect of the changing environmental conditions on the freshwater ecosystem. For the deforestation scenario, species richness was reduced, and the occurrence of the stonefly Togoperla sp. decreased considerably. Copyright (C) 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.