Comparative assessment of spatiotemporal snow cover changes and hydrological behavior of the Gilgit, Astore and Hunza River basins (Hindukush–Karakoram–Himalaya region, Pakistan)

Tahir, Adnan Ahmad; Adamowski, Jan; Chevallier, Pierre; Haq, Ayaz Ul; Terzago, Silvia

doi:10.1007/s00703-016-0440-6

Cited by 68 publications

(61 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…Worth noting fact is that substantial reduction in the glacier melt, aside changes in precipitation that are also positive, indicates a positive change in the frozen water resources of the UIB. Such finding is largely consistent with the prevailing changes depicted from the long-term observed streamflow record ( Figure 5) and with the reports of anomalously positive or stable glacial mass balances and extents [20,22,[27][28][29]31,[33][34][35], increasing snow covers and falling end-of-summer regional snow line altitudes [20,22,25,26], and subsequent reduction in the melt season discharges [4,19]. On the other hand, a decrease in the glacier melt and in the overall discharge is in direct contrast to the reports from earlier studies, which addressing only partially the climatic uncertainty over the UIB assess its future water availability under warmer climates [5][6][7][8]90], and suggest rather enhanced glacial melt and rise in the water availability throughout the 21st century.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

“…For other main cryospheric regions of the UIB, the studies consistently report and support cooling phenomenon [4,17,19,21,27,28,30,35,36,75,76]. Over the whole UIB, increasing snow cover in a recent decade [25,26] and conflict of tree-ring based paeleoclimatic Karakoram summer temperatures with the hemispheric warming for recent five centuries [23] have also been reported.…”

Section: Prevailing Hydro-cryo-climatic Changesmentioning

confidence: 55%

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Future Water Availability from Hindukush-Karakoram-Himalaya upper Indus Basin under Conflicting Climate Change Scenarios

Hasson

2016

Climate

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Future of the crucial Himalayan water supplies has generally been assessed under the anthropogenic warming, typically consistent amid observations and climate model projections. However, conflicting mid-to-late melt-season cooling within the upper Indus basin (UIB) suggests that the future of its melt-dominated hydrological regime and the subsequent water availability under changing climate has yet been understood only indistinctly. Here, the future water availability from the UIB is presented under both observed and projected-though likely but contrasting-climate change scenarios. Continuation of prevailing climatic changes suggests decreased and delayed glacier melt but increased and early snowmelt, leading to reduction in the overall water availability and profound changes in the overall seasonality of the hydrological regime. Hence, initial increases in the water availability due to enhanced glacier melt under typically projected warmer climates, and then abrupt decrease upon vanishing of the glaciers, as reported earlier, is only true given the UIB starts following uniformly the global warming signal. Such discordant future water availability findings caution the impact assessment communities to consider the relevance of likely (near-future) climate change scenarios-consistent to prevalent climatic change patterns-in order to adequately support the water resource planning in Pakistan.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Section: Prevailing Hydro-cryo-climatic Changesmentioning

confidence: 55%

Future Water Availability from Hindukush-Karakoram-Himalaya upper Indus Basin under Conflicting Climate Change Scenarios

Hasson

2016

Climate

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“…Thus, field-significant results for the whole Karakoram are mainly dominated by the contribution of relatively large number of stations from the western Karakoram. Nevertheless, reports of increasing end-ofsummer snow cover and falling regional snow line altitudes (Minora et al, 2013;Hasson et al, 2014b;Tahir et al, 2016), increasing or stable glacial extents (Hewitt, 2005;Scherler et al, 2011;Bhambri et al, 2013;Minora et al, 2013), and possibly a non-negative glacier mass balance within eastern and central Karakoram (Gardelle et al, 2013 -in contrast to a shorter period - Kääb et al, 2015), local climate change narratives (Gioli et al, 2013) and overall simulated reduced near-future water availability for the UIB (Hasson, 2016b) reinforce our presented findings.…”

Section: Water Availabilitysupporting

confidence: 84%

Prevailing climatic trends and runoff response from Hindukush–Karakoram–Himalaya, upper Indus Basin

Böhner²,

2017

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Abstract. Largely depending on the meltwater from the Hindukush-Karakoram-Himalaya, withdrawals from the upper Indus Basin (UIB) contribute half of the surface water availability in Pakistan, indispensable for agricultural production systems, industrial and domestic use, and hydropower generation. Despite such importance, a comprehensive assessment of prevailing state of relevant climatic variables determining the water availability is largely missing. Against this background, this study assesses the trends in maximum, minimum and mean temperatures, diurnal temperature range and precipitation from 18 stations (1250-4500 m a.s.l.) for their overlapping period of record (1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012) and, separately, from six stations of their long-term record . For this, a Mann-Kendall test on serially independent time series is applied to detect the existence of a trend, while its true slope is estimated using the Sen's slope method. Further, locally identified climatic trends are statistically assessed for their spatial-scale significance within 10 identified subregions of the UIB, and the spatially (field-) significant climatic trends are then qualitatively compared with the trends in discharge out of corresponding subregions. Over the recent period (1995-2012), we find warming and drying of spring (field-significant in March) and increasing early melt season discharge from most of the subregions, likely due to a rapid snowmelt. In stark contrast, most of the subregions feature a field-significant cooling within the monsoon period (particularly in July and September), which coincides well with the main glacier melt season. Hence, a decreasing or weakly increasing discharge is observed from the corresponding subregions during mid-to late melt season (particularly in July). Such tendencies, being largely consistent with the long-term trends , most likely indicate dominance of the nival but suppression of the glacial melt regime, altering overall hydrology of the UIB in future. These findings, though constrained by sparse and short observations, largely contribute in understanding the UIB melt runoff dynamics and address the hydroclimatic explanation of the "Karakoram Anomaly".

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“…They found that the Karakoram Range received maximum precipitation at an elevation of above 5500 m, whereas high elevation (4000 m) regions generate much of the UIB's flow [5,8]. However, only a few studies, e.g., [9,10] have monitored the climatic parameters, snow and ice processes and resultant hydrological regimes at these altitudes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Over the past few years, many studies have been conducted worldwide to assess the changing trends in temperature and rainfall for different countries such as the USA, Africa, India, Norwegian Arctic, Nepal, Northwestern Himalaya [10,[12][13][14][15], using different statistical models and methods.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigating Snow Cover and Hydrometeorological Trends in Contrasting Hydrological Regimes of the Upper Indus Basin

2018

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Abstract:The Upper Indus basin (UIB) is characterized by contrasting hydrometeorological behaviors; therefore, it has become pertinent to understand hydrometeorological trends at the sub-watershed level. Many studies have investigated the snow cover and hydrometeorological modeling at basin level but none have reported the spatial variability of trends and their magnitude at a sub-basin level. This study was conducted to analyze the trends in the contrasting hydrological regimes of the snow and glacier-fed river catchments of the Hunza and Astore sub-basins of the UIB. Mann-Kendall and Sen's slope methods were used to study the main trends and their magnitude using MODIS snow cover information (2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015) and hydrometeorological data. The results showed that in the Hunza basin, the river discharge and temperature were significantly (p ≤ 0.05) decreased with a Sen's slope value of −2.541 m 3 ·s −1 ·year −1 and −0.034 • C·year −1 , respectively, while precipitation data showed a non-significant (p ≥ 0.05) increasing trend with a Sen's slope value of 0.023 mm·year −1 . In the Astore basin, the river discharge and precipitation are increasing significantly (p ≤ 0.05) with a Sen's slope value of 1.039 m 3 ·s −1 ·year −1 and 0.192 mm·year −1 , respectively. The snow cover analysis results suggest that the Western Himalayas (the Astore basin) had a stable trend with a Sen's slope of 0.07% year −1 and the Central Karakoram region (the Hunza River basin) shows a slightly increasing trend with a Sen's slope of 0.394% year −1 . Based on the results of this study it can be concluded that since both sub-basins are influenced by different climatological systems (monsoon and westerly), the results of those studies that treat the Upper Indus basin as one unit in hydrometeorological modeling should be used with caution. Furthermore, it is suggested that similar studies at the sub-basin level of the UIB will help in a better understanding of the Karakoram anomaly.

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Comparative assessment of spatiotemporal snow cover changes and hydrological behavior of the Gilgit, Astore and Hunza River basins (Hindukush–Karakoram–Himalaya region, Pakistan)

Cited by 68 publications

References 63 publications

Future Water Availability from Hindukush-Karakoram-Himalaya upper Indus Basin under Conflicting Climate Change Scenarios

Future Water Availability from Hindukush-Karakoram-Himalaya upper Indus Basin under Conflicting Climate Change Scenarios

Prevailing climatic trends and runoff response from Hindukush–Karakoram–Himalaya, upper Indus Basin

Investigating Snow Cover and Hydrometeorological Trends in Contrasting Hydrological Regimes of the Upper Indus Basin

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