Understanding the inconsistency in the effects of monsoon changes on drought and flood occurrences would allow scientists to identify useful indicators in the prediction and early warning of regional drought and flood. Based on the calculation of the Standardized Precipitation Index, monsoon indices, and water vapor fluxes from 1956 to 2015, the relationships between drought–flood occurrences and monsoons in different regions of the Lancang River Basin were investigated. Drought and flood occurrences had spatial differences. Areas located in the lower basin had high drought and flood occurrences. The frequencies of drought and flood occurrences have no obvious regional differences and mainly varied periodically at 3–5, 8–15, and 20–25 years. Because the impact and strength of the Tibetan Plateau Monsoon (TPM) and South Asian monsoon (SAM) are limited, the TPM and SAM are the key factors that affect the occurrences of drought and flood in the upstream and downstream regions of the Lancang River Basin, respectively. The TPM and SAM are potentially useful indicators in the prediction of drought and flood occurrences. These results are of great scientific merit in developing an effective mitigation strategy to reduce the impacts of drought–flood disasters in the Lancang River Basin.
Exploring the relations between streamflow and large-scale atmospheric circulation systems can assist in identifying potentially useful indicators for the modeling of hydrological processes. With the help of ensemble empirical mode decomposition and the wavelet analysis method, this research explored streamflow variations and its links to large-scale atmospheric circulation indices during 1960–2012 in the Three Rivers Headwater Region (TRHR). A steady increasing trend was detected in the streamflow of the source region of Yangtze River (SYR), and a steady decreasing trend was detected in the streamflow of the source region of Lancang River (SLR). The streamflow of the source region of Yellow River (SYeR) had an increasing trend in the early years of the study period and subsequently exhibited a decreasing trend. The Tibetan Plateau monsoon (TPM), Arctic Oscillation (AO), and South Asia monsoon (SAM) are the key factors influencing streamflow changes in the SYR, SYeR, and SLR, respectively. At interannual time-scale variation with the period of about 3–9 years, an antiphase relationship exists between SYR streamflow and TPM indices, while in-phase relationships are detected between SYeR (SLR) streamflow and AO (SAM) indices.
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