Abstract:The assessment of surface water resources (SWRs) in the semi-arid Yongding River Basin is vital as the basin has been in a continuous state of serious water shortage over the last 20 years. In this study, the first version of the geomorphology-based hydrological model (GBHM) has been applied to the basin over a long period of time as part of an SWR assessment. This was done by simulating the natural hydrological processes in the basin. The model was first evaluated at 18 stream gauges during the period from 1990 to 1992 to evaluate both the daily streamflows and the annual SWRs using the land use data for 1990. The model was further validated in 2000 with the annual SWRs at seven major stream gauges. Second, the verified model was used in a 45-year simulation to estimate the annual SWRs for the basin from 1956 to 2000 using the 1990 land use data. An empirical correlation between the annual precipitation and the annual SWRs was developed for the basin. Spatial distribution of the long-term mean runoff coefficients for all 177 sub-basins was also achieved. Third, an additional 10-year (1991)(1992)(1993)(1994)(1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000) simulation was performed with the 2000 land use data to investigate the impact of land use changes from 1990 to 2000 on the long-term annual SWRs. The results suggest that the 10-year land use changes have led to a decrease of 8Ð3 ð 10 7 m 3 (7Ð9% of total) for the 10-year mean annual SWRs in the simulation. To our knowledge, this work is the first attempt to assess the long-term SWRs and the impact of land use change in the semi-arid Yongding River Basin using a semi-distributed hillslope hydrological model.

As basic data, the river networks and water resources zones (WRZ) are critical for planning, utilization, development, conservation and management of water resources. Currently, the river network and WRZ of world are most obtained based on digital elevation model data automatically, which are not accuracy enough, especially in plains. In addition, the WRZ code is inconsistent with the river network, hindering the efficiency of data in hydrology and water resources research. Based on the global 90-meter DEM data combined with a large number of auxiliary data, this paper proposed a series of methods for generating river network and water resources zones, and then obtained high-precision global river network and corresponding WRZs at level 1 to 4. The dataset provides generated rivers with high prevision and more accurate position, reasonable basin boundaries especially in inland and plain area, also the first set of global WRZ at level 1 to 4 with unified code. It can provide an important basis and support for reasonable use of water resources and sustainable social development in the world.

In this study, the major winter wheat planting area of China is selected as the study area, with the time scale of the growth period of winter wheat (a total of 56 growth periods during October 1961 to May 2016). The significance, stability, magnitude of the trend and the average trend of the study area with eight temperature indices and seven precipitation indices of 453 meteorological stations are tested by Mann–Kendall method and Sen’s nonparametric method. The following observation can be made: (1) the cold extreme indices show strong and stable downward trend in most of the stations in the study area, while the hot extreme indices show a strong and stable upward trend, especially in the northern winter wheat planting area and the north of the southern winter wheat planting area. (2) The trends of extreme precipitation indices in most of the sites in the study area are insignificant and unstable. Only in R20mm, a significant and stable decreasing trend is shown in some stations, which is mainly located in the northern winter wheat planting area and part of the central and western regions in the study area. The results in some ways could enrich the references for understanding the climate change in the growth period of winter wheat in the region and help to formulate a better agronomic management practice of winter wheat.

Slope ecological restoration and climate change are important factors affecting the hydrological processes of the Huangshui River Basin in Qinghai province, China. How to quantitatively identify the impact of slope ecological restoration on runoff and whether slope ecological restoration can mitigate the impact of future climate change on runoff are both very important. In this paper, the Huangshui River above the center of Minhe county was taken as the research area, and the Pinus tabulaeformis and shrubs were taken as the main forest land types of slope ecological restoration. First, based on the law of forest land variation, the construction scales of slope ecological restoration in different periods were identified. The influence of slope ecological restoration on runoff was then quantitatively evaluated by using a distributed hydrological model. Second, the future climate scenarios of five general circulation models (GCMs) under three representative concentration pathways (RCPs) (i.e., RCP2.6, RCP4.5, and RCP8.5) from 2021 to 2050 were selected and modified by model integration. Combined with the slope ecological restoration scenarios, the influence of slope ecological restoration on runoff under future climate scenarios was explored. The results showed that the effect of slope ecological restoration was significant. Compared with 1980, the area of slope ecological restoration increased by 24% in 2017. Under the present climate conditions (1960–2017), different periods of slope ecological restoration have an effect on the process of runoff in the wet season (June, July, August, and September) and dry season (January, February, March, and December), which eliminates the maximum, replenishes the minimum, and reduces the variability of runoff processes in the watershed. Under the future climate scenario (2021–50), slope ecological restoration will reduce runoff. On the other hand, climate change will increase runoff, and the combination of the two effects will have a certain offsetting effect. On the whole, comparing the influence of slope ecological restoration on the runoff process with that of climate change in different seasons, due to the main influence of slope ecological restoration, the runoff decreased by about 55% in the temperate season (April, May, October, and November), and increased by about 50% in the dry season or wet season due to the main influence of future climate scenarios.

Under the influence of global climate change, the discharges of major global rivers directed into the ocean have undergone significant changes. To study the trends and causes in discharge variation, we selected 40 large rivers and analyzed their annual discharges near their estuaries from 1960 to 2010. The method of runoff variation attribution analysis based on the Budyko hypothesis for large-scale basins was developed, in which influencing factors of human activities and glacial melting factors were added to the formula. The contribution rate of climate factors and human activities to changes in discharge were quantitatively identified. Climatic factors include precipitation, evapotranspiration and glacial melting. Human activity factors include underlying surface and artificial water transfer. The contribution rate is determined by the elastic coefficient, which is obtained by the ratio of change rate of each factor and the change rate of runoff. The results indicated that the discharges predominantly showed downward trends with a few upward trends. Rivers in North America and Africa showed downward trends, and those in Europe principally showed upward trends. Climate was the main influencing factor of discharges changes, and only approximately 25% of river discharges were greatly affected by human activities. River discharges in 75% of the basins which mainly contains subtropical monsoon humid climate and savanna climate zones showed upward trends. In the four basins which are mainly contains tropical rainforest climate and tropical monsoon climate, they all showed downward trends. The trend of discharges in the temperate monsoon climate, temperate continental climate, and temperate maritime climate cannot be accurately judged because of irregular variation. The discharges in the mid-high latitudinal zones predominantly showed upward trends, while those in the mid-low latitudinal zones with the influence of human activities showed downward trends.