Assessment the impact of forest cover change on rainfall in Kelantan River Basin

This study hypothesized that rainfall decreases with reduced Leaf Area Index (LAI) as the land use and land cover changes from 2010 to 2019. With reduction in vegetation, the evapotranspiration (ET) rate is expected to be lower, hence reducing the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere. The reduced amount of atmospheric water vapor creates a dry environment over the vegetation, which restricts the air from achieving saturation to form clouds, thus affecting rainfall. This study aims to study forest cover change on rainfall in Kelantan River Basin (KRB) based on the relationship between LAI, ET and rainfall between 2010 and 2019. The study utilized remotely-sensed ET (MYD16A2GF) and LAI (MYD15A2H) from NASA MODIS, and rainfall from the Global Precipitation Measurement Mission (GPM). Trend and time-series analyses were performed for all three variables and the relationship between ET, LAI and rainfall were determined using multiple linear regression. The results show that seasonal change in ET and LAI were mostly decreasing, while rainfall showed an increasing trend. Both ET and LAI were found to have a weak negative correlation with rainfall, indicating that they do not significantly influence rainfall in KRB between 2010 and 2019.