Mitigating environmental risks: Modeling the interaction of water quality parameters and land use cover

•The study aimed to investigate rivers water quality (RWQ) and landscape metrics (LMs).•Remote sensing and GIS techniques were used to generate land use/land cover maps.•Results showed a complex nonlinear relationship between the LMs and WQPs.•Results help identify pollution sources and effective solutions in the study area.•The results can be used in the environmental impact/risk assessment.