Attribution for decreasing streamflow of the Haihe River basin, northern China: Climate variability or human activities?

Bao, Zhenxin; Zhang, Jianyun; Wang, Guoqing; Fu, Guobin; He, Ronghai; Yan, Xiaolin; Jin, Jian; Li, Yanli; Zhang, Aijing

doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2012.06.054

Cited by 241 publications

(144 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…Based on the previous studies of the HRB, climate and LU have been identified as the primary factors responsible for the decrease in runoff [37,38,42,43]. Considering the in situ conditions of the mountainous region of the HRB, which is less disturbed by human activities than elsewhere in the basin, the following environmental factors were selected as the influencing factors: precipitation, air temperature, proportion of forest, farmland, and grass, and the leaf area index (LAI) ( Table 1).…”

Section: Environmental Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Dynamic Impacts of Climate and Land-Use Changes on Surface Runoff in the Mountainous Region of the Haihe River Basin, China

Zheng

Huang

et al. 2018

Advances in Meteorology

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The relative contributions of different factors to the variation in surface runoff have been broadly quantified. However, little attention has been paid to how these relative contributions have changed over time. We analyzed the changes in surface runoff during 1980-2010 in six subbasins in the mountainous region of the Haihe River Basin, one of the most serious water shortage regions in China, and identified the changes in the relative contributions of climate (precipitation and temperature) and land-use to surface runoff decrease. There was a decreasing tendency in surface runoff in all subbasins, four of which had an abrupt change point around 1998. Comparing the relative contributions before and after 1998 in the four subbasins, the average influence of climate was found to decline dramatically from 67.1% to 30.5%, while that of land-use increased from 23.9% to 69.5% mainly due to the increase of forest area. Our results revealed that the primary environmental factor responsible for runoff variations was not constant, and an alternation may accentuate the impact and stimulate an abrupt change of runoff in semiarid and semihumid mountainous regions. This will help in taking tracking measures to deal with the complex water resource challenges according to different driving factors.

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Section: Environmental Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the HRB, runoff has shown a significant downward trend in recent decades [28,37,38]. A decrease in runoff from the headstream in mountainous areas has limited the downstream surface flow in the HRB [39][40][41].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamic Impacts of Climate and Land-Use Changes on Surface Runoff in the Mountainous Region of the Haihe River Basin, China

Zheng

Huang

et al. 2018

Advances in Meteorology

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“…Several studies have applied hydrological models to assess the different causes of streamflow changes Bao et al, 2012;Tesfa et al, 2014;Chang et al, 2015), providing simulations of naturalized and reconstructed discharge time series to quantify and separate the different impacts. Alternatively, the paired basin approach has been used to model the impact of human-induced land cover changes on streamflow by comparing simulations in catchments of very similar characteristics (Bonell and Bruijnzeel, 2005;Seibert and McDonnell, 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying human impacts on hydrological drought using a combined modelling approach in a tropical river basin in central Vietnam

Firoz¹,

Nauditt²,

Fink

et al. 2018

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Hydrological droughts are one of the most damaging disasters in terms of economic loss in central Vietnam and other regions of South-east Asia, severely affecting agricultural production and drinking water supply. Their increasing frequency and severity can be attributed to extended dry spells and increasing water abstractions for e.g. irrigation and hydropower development to meet the demand of dynamic socioeconomic development. Based on hydro-climatic data for the period from 1980 to 2013 and reservoir operation data, the impacts of recent hydropower development and other alterations of the hydrological network on downstream streamflow and drought risk were assessed for a mesoscale basin of steep topography in central Vietnam, the Vu Gia Thu Bon (VGTB) River basin. The Just Another Modelling System (JAMS)/J2000 was calibrated for the VGTB River basin to simulate reservoir inflow and the naturalized discharge time series for the downstream gauging stations. The HEC-ResSim reservoir operation model simulated reservoir outflow from eight major hydropower stations as well as the reconstructed streamflow for the main river branches Vu Gia and Thu Bon. Drought duration, severity, and frequency were analysed for different timescales for the naturalized and reconstructed streamflow by applying the daily varying threshold method.Efficiency statistics for both models show good results. A strong impact of reservoir operation on downstream discharge at the daily, monthly, seasonal, and annual scales was detected for four discharge stations relevant for downstream water allocation. We found a stronger hydrological drought risk for the Vu Gia river supplying water to the city of Da Nang and large irrigation systems especially in the dry season. We conclude that the calibrated model set-up provides a valuable tool to quantify the different origins of drought to support cross-sectorial water management and planning in a suitable way to be transferred to similar river basins.

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“…The CEM defines the proportional change of streamflow divided by the proportional change in a climate variable such as precipitation (Ma et al, 2010). The model was first developed by Schaake and Waggoner (1990) to evaluate the sensitivity of streamflow to climate changes and then employed widely to assess the climate variability impact (Sankarasubramanian et al, 2001;Jones et al, 2006;Fu et al, 2007;Bao et al, 2012b):…”

Section: The Climate Elasticity Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impacts of land use change and climate variations on annual inflow into the Miyun Reservoir, Beijing, China

Zheng

Sun

et al. 2016

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. The Miyun Reservoir, the only surface water source for Beijing city, has experienced water supply decline in recent decades. Previous studies suggest that both land use change and climate contribute to the changes of water supply in this critical watershed. However, the specific causes of the decline in the Miyun Reservoir are debatable under a non-stationary climate in the past 4 decades. The central objective of this study was to quantify the separate and collective contributions of land use change and climate variability to the decreasing inflow into the Miyun Reservoir during . Different from previous studies on this watershed, we used a comprehensive approach to quantify the timing of changes in hydrology and associated environmental variables using the long-term historical hydrometeorology and remote-sensing-based land use records. To effectively quantify the different impacts of the climate variation and land use change on streamflow during different subperiods, an annual water balance model (AWB), the climate elasticity model (CEM), and a rainfall-runoff model (RRM) were employed to conduct attribution analysis synthetically. We found a significant (p < 0.01) decrease in annual streamflow, a significant positive trend in annual potential evapotranspiration (p < 0.01), and an insignificant (p > 0.1) negative trend in annual precipitation during 1961-2008. We identified two streamflow breakpoints, 1983 and 1999, by the sequential Mann-Kendall test and double-mass curve. Climate variability alone did not explain the decrease in inflow to the Miyun Reservoir. Reduction of water yield was closely related to increase in actual evapotranspiration due to the expansion of forestland and reduction in cropland and grassland, and was likely exacerbated by increased water consumption for domestic and industrial uses in the basin. The contribution to the observed streamflow decline from land use change fell from 64-92 % during 1984-1999 to 36-58 % during 2000-2008, whereas the contribution from climate variation climbed from 8-36 % during the 1984-1999 to 42-64 % during 2000-2008. Model uncertainty analysis further demonstrated that climate warming played a dominant role in streamflow reduction in the most recent decade (i.e., 2000s). We conclude that future climate change and variability will further challenge the water supply capacity of the Miyun Reservoir to meet water demand. A comprehensive watershed management strategy needs to consider the climate variations besides vegetation management in the study basin.

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Attribution for decreasing streamflow of the Haihe River basin, northern China: Climate variability or human activities?

Cited by 241 publications

References 37 publications

Dynamic Impacts of Climate and Land-Use Changes on Surface Runoff in the Mountainous Region of the Haihe River Basin, China

Dynamic Impacts of Climate and Land-Use Changes on Surface Runoff in the Mountainous Region of the Haihe River Basin, China

Quantifying human impacts on hydrological drought using a combined modelling approach in a tropical river basin in central Vietnam

Impacts of land use change and climate variations on annual inflow into the Miyun Reservoir, Beijing, China

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