Analysis of urbanization impact on changes in river discharge – a case study of the Biała river catchment

The article presents a simulation of urbanization impact on runoff changes in an urbanized catchment. Application of a distributed hydrological WetSpa model enabled comprehensive use of Landsat satellite images as a source of data about contemporary and historical land cover in the catchment. The analyses conducted for the Biała river catchment, with over 60% of the area being urbanized, revealed a significant influence of changes in the size of urbanized area on runoff hydrograph.