Land cover change plays a critical role in influencing hydrological responses. Change in land cover has impacted runoff across basins with substantial human interference; however, the impacts in basins with minimal human interference have been studied less. In this study, we investigated the impacts of directional land cover changes (forest to/from combined grassland and shrubland) in runoff coefficient (RC; ratio of runoff to precipitation) and runoff volume across 603 low human interference reference basins in the conterminous United States (CONUS). The results indicate basins with significant (p<0.05) increasing trends in runoff and RC were across the northeast and northwest regions of CONUS, and basins with decreasing trends were [...]
