Effect of land cover on channel form adjustment of headwater streams in a lateritic belt of West Bengal (India)

Present work is exploring the influence of land cover on channel morphology in 34 headwater catchments of the lateritic belt of West Bengal. Non-parametric tests (Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis) and multivariate analysis (Principal Component Analysis and Canonical Discriminant Function models) have successfully differentiated the performance of land cover on channel morphology adjustment among the three groups of headwater streams (forested, transitional, and agricultural) on the Kunur River Basin (KRB). Spatial Interpolation Techniques reveal that intense land-use change, particularly forest conversion to agricultural land, is significantly increasing channel widths (269%) and cross-section area (78%), whereas agricultural channels become shallower (40%) than would be predicted from forested streams. Catchments with the dominance of forest and agricultural land are classified as 'C′ and 'B′ types of streams respectively, as per Rosgen's Stream Classification Model. Finally, the work claimed that transitional stream group is the definitive area to exaggerate the river restoration plan to stabilize the anthropogenic deformation on channel morphology.