Understanding the effect of changing land use on floods and soil erosion in the Cagayan de Oro catchment
Authors:   , Benavidez Rubianca 
Published: December 2021

<p>The destructive capability of typhoons affects lives and infrastructure around the world. Spatial analysis of historical typhoon records reveal an area of intense storm activity within the Southeast Asian (SEA) region. Within SEA is the Philippines, an archipelagic tropical country regularly struck by storms that often cause severe landslides, erosion and floods. Annually, ˜20 cyclones enter the Philippine Area of Responsibility, with about nine making landfall, causing high winds and intense rainfall. Thus, significant research in the Philippines has focused on increasing the resilience of ecosystems and communities through real-time disaster forecasting, structural protections, and programmes for sustainable watershed management (e.g. rehabilitation and conservation agriculture). This dissertation focused on the third aspect through computer modelling and scenario analysis. The study area is the Cagayan de Oro (CDO) catchment (˜1400km²) located in the Southern Philippines. The catchment experienced heavy flooding in 2012 from Typhoon Bopha and has major erosion problems due to mountainous slopes and heavy rainfall. Communities derive ecosystem services (ES) including agricultural production, water supply, recreation, mining resources, flood mitigation, etc. Since changes to the supply or distribution of these ES affects livelihoods and the hydrological response of the catchment to typhoon events, this research used the Land Utilisation and Capability Indicator (LUCI) model to understand the baseline ES and potential changes associated with basin management plans. This was the first detailed tropical application of LUCI, including parameterising it for Philippine soil and land cover datasets in CDO and extending its capability to be applied in future tropical areas. Aside from applying LUCI in a new geoclimatic region, this research contributed to the general development of LUCI through testing and improving its sediment delivery and inundation modelling. The sediment delivery was enhanced using the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) model that allows LUCI for the first time to account for impacts of specific land management such as agroforestry and contour cropping on erosion and sediment delivery. Progress was made in updating a flatwater inundation model for use with LUCI, including converting it to Python but this requires further development and testing before it is suitable for application in the Philippines. The development and rehabilitation scenarios showed improved flood mitigation, lower surficial soil erosion rates, and lower loads of nutrients compared to the baseline scenario. Additionally, ES mapping under different land cover scenarios has not been previously accomplished in CDO, and this research provides useful information to guide local decision-making and management planning. The rainfall-runoff model of LUCI was tested against the Hydrologic Engineering Center’s Hydrological Modelling System (HEC-HMS), showing good agreement with observed flow. Since the rainfall-runoff model of LUCI has been minimally utilised in past applications, this CDO application elucidated directions for future work around further testing under extreme rainfall events and climate change. Overall, this novel application of LUCI creates a framework to assist decision-making around land cover changes in the CDO, provides guidance around data requirements and parameterisation procedures to guide future international applications, and has significantly contributed to development and improvement of the LUCI framework to extend its modelling capabilities in the future.</p>