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Located in the south of Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, the Tarim River is the longest inland river in China. Agricultural development, excessive exploitation and low surface water use efficiency in the headstream regions have led to a marked decrease in the water supply to the mainstream. This, in turn, has resulted in the drying-up of the watercourse in the lower reaches of the Tarim River and serious deterioration of the eco-environment. The Aksu River Basin, the most important headstream of the Tarim River, was selected as the research area in this study. Taking elastic coefficient, water demand coefficient and water utilization intensity as the indices, we studied the impact of agricultural development on decreasing surface runoff since the 1950s. The results indicated that (1) the increasing rate of consumption of surface runoff outstripped the rate of increase measured in the natural catchment discharge, resulting in ever diminishing stream discharge into the Tarim River. Agricultural irrigation and seepage loss in irrigation canal systems were the major sources for runoff consumption, taking 63.72% of the overall runoff consumption. What's more, agricultural water consumption took up more than 97% of the water used for long-term production; (2) the expansion of cultivated land, change of planting structure and comparatively low agricultural irrigation efficiency all contributed to the decrease in surface runoff of the Aksu River. The elasticity coefficient of surface runoff reduction corresponding to the increase in planted area was 0.34 in the 1950s, while in the 2000s it had increased to 7.87. This reflected a more sensitive response of runoff decrease to cultivated land expansion. The increase in cotton and fruit production, without widely-used scientific irrigation methods and water-saving technology, led to considerable waste of the water resources. Meanwhile, the irrigation efficiency was still quite low, characterized by the waste of water resources, and the decrease of surface runoff; (3) in different stages, cultivated land area, planting structure and agricultural water use efficiency exerted different effects on runoff decrease. In the early stage, agricultural development showed no obvious effect on runoff decrease. Since the 1960s, the expansion in cultivated land resulted in large consumption of surface runoff; since the 1990s, not only expansion in cultivated land expansion, but also planting structure exerted significant impact on the consumption of surface runoff. Recently, though agricultural water use efficiency has improved in some regions to reduce the consumption of runoff to a certain extent, overall agricultural water use efficiency is still quite low; (4) during the investigation period, water consumption by agricultural development reflected the unbalanced relationship between human activities and water resources.

In order to improve the investment accuracy of power grid projects, this paper takes distribution network investment as the research object, and proposes a distribution network precision investment method based on a three-level strategy of region, power supply grid, and power supply unit. Firstly, building a precise investment index system for the investment scale of the regional distribution network, and calculate the investment situation through the precise investment calculation formula of the regional distribution network. Secondly, building a time sequence evaluation system for the overall construction of the power supply grid of the distribution network, and then study the prioritization method based on investment projects. The time sequence method for the overall construction of the power supply unit of the distribution network and the multi-objective optimization precision investment method based on the target grid framework. Finally, the effectiveness and operability of the above precision investment method are verified through empirical application.INDEX TERMS Three-level strategy, investment scale calculation, interval multiplicative reciprocal matrix, PPM algorithm, multi-objective optimization.

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Subsurface pipe failures in cold regions are generally believed to be exacerbated by differential strain in shallow soils induced by seasonal freeze and thaw cycles. The transient stress–strain fields resulting from soil water phase change may influence the occurrence of local buried pipe breaks including those related to urban water mains. This work proposes that freezing‐induced frost loading results in uneven stress–strain distributions along the buried water mains placing them at risk of bending, breaking, and/or leaking. A coupled thermal‐hydraulic‐mechanical (THM) model was developed to illustrate the interactions among moisture, temperature, and stress–strain fields within variably saturated freezing soils. Several typical cases involving highly frost‐susceptible and lower frost‐susceptible soils underlying roadbeds were examined. Results show that the magnitude of frost‐induced compressive stress and strain changes between different frost‐susceptible soils can vary significantly. Such substantial differences in stress–strain fields would increase the breakage risk of water mains buried within different types of soils. Furthermore, even water mains buried within soils with low frost‐susceptibility are at risk when additional sources of soil water exist and are available to migrate to the freezing front. To reduce the risk of damage to buried pipe‐like infrastructure, such as municipal water mains, from soil freezing phenomena, the selected backfill material should have fairly consistent frost susceptibility or a broad zone of transition should be considered between materials with significantly different frost susceptibility. In addition, buried pipes should be kept as far away from external sources of subsurface water as possible considering the potential for the water source to exacerbate the level of risk to the pipe.

As climate change intensifies, soil water flow, heat transfer, and solute transport in the active, unfrozen zones within permafrost and seasonally frozen ground exhibit progressively more complex interactions that are difficult to elucidate with measurements alone. For example, frozen conditions impede water flow and solute transport in soil, while heat and mass transfer are significantly affected by high thermal inertia generated from water‐ice phase change during the freeze‐thaw cycle. To assist in understanding these subsurface processes, the current study presents a coupled two‐dimensional model, which examines heat conduction‐convection with water‐ice phase change, soil water (liquid water and vapour) and groundwater flow, advective‐dispersive solute transport with sorption, and soil deformation (frost heave and thaw settlement) in variably saturated soils subjected to freeze‐thaw actions. This coupled multiphysics problem is numerically solved using the finite element method. The model's performance is first verified by comparison to a well‐documented freezing test on unsaturated soil in a laboratory environment obtained from the literature. Then based on the proposed model, we quantify the impacts of freeze‐thaw cycles on the distribution of temperature, water content, displacement history, and solute concentration in three distinct soil types, including sand, silt and clay textures. The influence of fluctuations in the air temperature, groundwater level, hydraulic conductivity, and solute transport parameters was also comparatively studied.The results show that (i) there is a significant bidirectional exchange between groundwater in the saturated zone and soil water in the vadose zone during freeze‐thaw periods, and its magnitude increases with the combined influence of higher hydraulic conductivity and higher capillarity; (ii) the rapid dewatering ahead of the freezing front causes local volume shrinkage within the non‐frozen region when the freezing front propagates downward during the freezing stage and this volume shrinkage reduces the impact of frost heave due to ice formation. This gradually recovers when the thawed water replenishes the water loss zone during the thawing stage; and (iii) the profiles of soil moisture, temperature, displacement, and solute concentration during freeze‐thaw cycles are sensitive to the changes in amplitude and freeze‐thaw period of the sinusoidal varying air temperature near the ground surface, hydraulic conductivity of soil texture, and the initial groundwater levels. Our modelling framework and simulation results highlight the need to account for coupled thermal‐hydraulic‐mechanical‐chemical behaviours to better understand soil water and groundwater dynamics during freeze‐thaw cycles and further help explain the observed changes in water cycles and landscape evolution in cold regions.This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

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