The evaluation of land-use options in mesoscale catchments prospects and limitations of eco-hydrological models

Land-use is a key factor in hydrological modelling. It controls not only parameters such as evaporation and runoff from catchments, but also erosion and water quality. This review summarizes the different approaches to integrate land-use in mesoscale catchment models and simulation projects. After a short overview of the basic possibilities to include land-use in hydrologic models, we discuss the implementation of land-use in selected models. The main part of the paper deals with different approaches to link land-use and water cycle. The papers which have been analysed in our review are classified into three categories: analysis of consequences of land-use changes on water cycle, scenarios with a fixed land-use and optimization of land-use according to economic or ecologic criteria. We finish with an outlook on the technical development of integrated modelling. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.