LUCST: A novel toolkit for Land Use Land Cover change assessment in SWAT+ to support flood management decisions

Land Use Land Cover (LULC) change is widely recognised as one of the most important factors impacting river basin hydrology. It is therefore imperative that the hydrological impacts of various LULC changes are considered for effective flood management strategies and future infrastructure decisions within a catchment. LULC changes in a catchment are typically modelled by the Soil and Water assessment Tool (SWAT) through alterations to the input files that define the properties of these HRUs. However, to our knowledge at least, the process of making such changes to the SWAT input files is often cumbersome and non-intuitive. This affects the usability of SWAT as a decision support tool amongst a wider pool of applied users (e.g., engineering teams in environmental regulatory agencies and local authorities