Recently, dramatic flooding occurred in several regions of the world. To in
vestigate the causes of the flooding and the influence of land use. soil ch
aracteristics and antecedent catchment moisture conditions, the distributed
catchment model LISFLOOD has been developed. LISFLOOD simulates runoff in
large river basins. Two transnational European river basins are used to tes
t and validate the model: the Meuse catchment (France, Belgium, Germany and
The Netherlands) and the Oder basin (The Czech Republic. Poland and German
y). In the Meuse and Oder catchment, land use change information over the p
ast 200 years is processed at the moment. The LISFLOOD simulation model is
used to simulate the effects of these land use changes on floods. Some infl
uences of land use and vegetation on the water balance are clear, such as t
he changing vegetation cover (leaf area index) which will influence evapotr
anspiration. However, not so much is known about the influences of vegetati
on on soil properties, which influence infiltration, soil water redistribut
ion, throughflow and groundwater recharge. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. A
ll rights reserved.