# The Hydroological Balance in Micro-Watersheds Is Affected by Climate Change and Land Use Changes
## 3 Results and Discussion  
### Changes in Land Use  
It is extremely important to know the historical and current trends of the spatiotemporal variability of surface cover and changes [60]. Changes can modify the hydrological ecosystem balance. Figure 3 shows the results of the supervised classification for the years 1995, 2008, and 2021. In the 1995-2008 period, land use changed to 1246 ha, which represents 16% of the total area, as shown in Figure 3d. For the period 2008-2021 (Figure 3e), the change in land use affected 1906 ha or 24% of the total area. Between 1995 and 2008, the loss of temperate forest was 57.6 ha, but the loss in the period 2008-2021 was 323.9 ha. (Table 3). A decrease of 16.3% (in both periods) was mainly because of the affectation of two forest fires that occurred in 2012 and 2017 [61; 62].  
The changes in land use as a consequence of forest fires coincided with Leon [63]. High-severity forest fires have the capacity to disturb hydrological processes in forested watersheds, such as interception, infiltration, storage, and evapotranspiration [64; 65]. The effects can be an increase in surface runoff, soil erosion, and sediment deposition [66; 67; 68]. Changes in the frequency and intensity of forest fires induced by climate change, outbreaks of insects and pathogens, and extreme phenomena, such as strong winds, may be more important than the direct impact of higher temperatures and elevated CO\({}_{2}\)[19].  
As a result of forest degradation due to fires, secondary vegetation growth was 301.7 ha between 1995 and 2021 (Table 4) since it was able to sprout quickly after a fire. This type of vegetation could thrive for a long time without succession being able to displace it [69]. The frequency of forest fires in Mexico has resulted in forest areas where secondary vegetation predominates [70].  
However, there was a positive response in terms of restoring degraded land, with 184.2 ha of reforestation, which would greatly favor infiltration levels since by reducing surface runoff, the infiltration capacity of rain increases within the mineral soil [71; 72].  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{l c c c c c c c c c} \hline \hline
**Land Use Class** & **1995** & **\%** & **2008** & **\%** & **2021** & **\%** & **1995–**2008–**2021** & **2008–**Change** & **Total** & **Change** \\ \hline Temperate forest & 2403.0 & 31.0 & 2345.4 & 30.3 & 2021.4 & 26.1 & \(-57.6\) & \(-323.9\) & \(-381.6\) & \(-14.7\) \\ Reforestation & 968.3 & 12.5 & 1104.6 & 14.3 & 1145.6 & 14.8 & 136.4 & 41.0 & 177.4 & 6.8 \\ Secondary & 137.0 & 1.8 & 300.7 & 3.9 & 438.7 & 5.7 & 163.7 & 138.0 & 301.7 & 11.6 \\ vegetation & 74.0 & 1.0 & 102.6 & 1.3 & 52.2 & 0.7 & 28.6 & \(-50.3\) & \(-21.8\) & \(-0.8\) \\ Mine & 147.8 & 1.9 & 124.2 & 1.6 & 212.2 & 2.7 & \(-23.6\) & 88.0 & 64.4 & 2.5 \\ Rainfed & 2530.0 & 32.7 & 2399.8 & 31.0 & 2294.8 & 29.6 & \(-130.3\) & \(-105.0\) & \(-235.3\) & \(-9.0\) \\ agriculture & 664.4 & 8.6 & 483.6 & 6.2 & 540.3 & 7.0 & \(-180.8\) & 56.8 & \(-124.1\) & \(-4.8\) \\ Irrigated & & & & & & & & & \\ agriculture & 20.0 & 0.3 & 32.2 & 0.4 & 80.8 & 1.0 & 12.2 & 48.6 & 60.8 & 2.3 \\ Urban & 791.7 & 10.2 & 844.3 & 10.9 & 949.9 & 12.3 & 52.6 & 105.6 & 158.2 & 6.1 \\ Water & 4.3 & 0.1 & 3.2 & 0.0 & 4.6 & 0.1 & \(-1.1\) & 1.4 & 0.3 & 0.0 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table}
Table 4: Land use and vegetation (ha) in years 1995, 2008 and 2021; changes between 1995–2008 and 2008–2021.  
Table 5 shows changes in land use. In the period 1995-2008, 32.6 and 49.3 ha of the temperate forest changed to reforestation and secondary vegetation, respectively. Reforestation areas changed mainly to secondary vegetation (100.2 ha) and rainfed agriculture (49.3 ha). For the period 2008-2021, the temperate forest changed to secondary vegetation (280.9 ha), and 131.5 ha changed to reforestation areas.