Developing a forecasting tool of land-use for local water resources policy

—Case of water demand forecast in the 3S sub-basins of the Mekong—

Abstract

Many Asian countries have faced real challenge to provide people with safe drinking water. Predicting the impact of dynamic and rapid change of land-use on water resources on local scale is a pressing issue, especially in developing countries where available data is very limited. In order to support water and land management and local policy making, a methodology to simulate future land-use and water demand was developed. A tool was developed as a GIS-based tool by integrating a series of analysis, for predicting future land-use based on local land-use change trends using multi logistic regression analysis. The model was applied to 2003 land-use to forecast 2033 land-use and water demand. With the Mekong River 3S sub-basins used as a study area, this paper presents the land-use forecast tool; simulated 2033 land-use and water demand: as well as estimated impact of the forecasted future water demand on the local stream flow.