The Effect of Land use Changes and Drought on the Groundwater Level in Chaghalvandi area

Optimal management of natural resources requires an understanding about the effect of land use/ land cover change on hydrological circle of the water in the area. The location of this study is Chaghalvandi, Lorestan province. In this research, to investigate the relationship between land use changes and drought with groundwater-level decline maps of land use were extracted from ETM satellite images of the Landsat satellite during 2004, 2009 and 2014. Next, the images were processed and analyzed, and then land use was classified into six levels including forest, pasture, shrubbery, agriculture field, residential area, and miscellaneous. The Kappa coefficient for the 2004, 2009, and 2014 classifications was 0.89, 0.9 and 0.92, respectively. Quantitative data of 18 piezometric wells during 2004, 2009 and 2014 were used to assess the relationship between land use change and groundwater level dropping in the area. The moving averages of 3, 5 and 7 year periods were used to determine precipitation level changes and drought and wet periods. The results showed that deterioration of the natural resources, destruction of forest lands and turning them into agriculture fields and residential areas, and groundwater level dropping in the time of long term drought. In 2104 the level of groundwater has dropped about 6 meters in comparison to 2004.