A framework for quantifying the impacts of climate change and human activities on hydrological drought in a semiarid basin of Northern China

Abstract

Climate change and human activities are two major driving forces affecting the hydrologic cycle, which further influence the stationarity of the hydrologic regime. Hydrological drought is a substantial negative deviation from the normal hydrologic conditions affected by these two phenomena. In this study, we propose a framework for quantifying the effects of climate change and human activities on hydrological drought. First, trend analysis and change‐point test are performed to determine variations of hydrological variables. After that, the fixed runoff threshold level method (TLM) and the standardized runoff index (SRI) are used to verify whether the traditional assessment methods for hydrological drought are applicable in a changing environment. Finally, two improved drought assessment methods, the variable TLM and the SRI based on parameter transplantation are employed to quantify the impacts of climate change and human activities on hydrological drought based on the reconstructed natural runoff series obtained using the variable infiltration capacity hydrologic model. The results of a case study on the typical semiarid Laohahe basin in North China show that the stationarity of the hydrological processes in the basin is destroyed by human activities (an obvious change‐point for runoff series is identified in 1979). The traditional hydrological drought assessment methods can no longer be applied to the period of 1980–2015. In contrast, the proposed separation framework is able to quantify the contributions of climate change and human activities to hydrological drought during the above period. Their ranges of contributions to hydrological drought calculated by the variable TLM method are 20.6–41.2% and 58.8–79.4%, and the results determined by the SRI based on parameter transplantation method are 15.3–45.3% and 54.7–84.7%, respectively. It is concluded that human activities have a dominant effect on hydrological drought in the study region. The novelty of the study is twofold. First, the proposed method is demonstrated to be efficient in quantifying the effects of climate change and human activities on hydrological drought. Second, the findings of this study can be used for hydrological drought assessment and water resource management in water‐stressed regions under nonstationary conditions.

Signatures of human intervention – or not? Downstream intensification of hydrological drought along a large Central Asian river: the individual roles of climate variability and land use change

“…As pointed out, amongst others, by Mishra and Singh (2010), the processes underlying droughts are complex because they are dependent on many interacting processes in terrestrial hydrological systems, such as the interaction between the atmosphere and the hydrological processes which feed moisture to the atmosphere. Therefore, monitoring and analysis of hydrological droughts have received increased attention in recent decades (van Huijgevoort et al, 2014;Pathak and Dodamani, 2016;Weng et al, 2015;Vicente-Serrano et al, 2012;Kubiak-Wójcicka and Bak, 2018;Trambauer et al, 2014;Ahmadalipour et al, 2017;Jiao and Yuan, 2019;Moravec et al, 2019). In general, it is well understood that both agricultural and hydrological droughts are modulated by the interactions of climate and river basin characteristics, such as geology, as well as a human influence or any combination thereof (e.g., Van Lanen et al, 2013;Huang et al, 2016;Liu et al, 2016;Van Loon et al, 2019).…”

Is It a Drought or Only a Fluctuation in Precipitation Patterns?—Drought Reconnaissance in Poland

“…For these reasons they could not be used in this study. An alternative approach is to use covariate [26,27] social, economic data (such as density of population and water use data, industry water use, agriculture yield, livestock, local gross domestic product, etc. ).…”

Multivariate Assessment of Low-Flow Hazards via Copulas: The Case Study of the Çoruh Basin (Turkey)

“…As a result, a lot of large-scale water structures, hydroelectric power plants and regulators were built in the basin, and others are under construction or in a planning stage. For example, Deriner dam located in Artvin Province in the lower Çoruh basin is the third highest dam in the world with a height of 249 m. It has a storage volume of 1.97 billion m 3 and is considered the second largest reservoir in the Çoruh basin. The Yusufeli dam, presently under construction, has the highest storage capacity among the dams operating on the Çoruh River, and is expected to generate 1.888 GWh/year of electricity [30].…”

“…Different drought definitions are proposed in literature, and droughts are generally classified in four types: meteorological, hydrological, agricultural and socio-economic [2]. Hydrological droughts (entailing a significant reduction of available surface and subsurface water variables, such as river streamflow, groundwater, reservoir and lake levels), are considered as having the most serious impacts on water supply [3,4]. In particular, the streamflows are considered as important indicators that define the status of surface water resources [5].…”