Contemporary Trends in High and Low River Flows in Upper Indus Basin, Pakistan

Abstract

The Upper Indus Basin (UIB) features the high mountain ranges of the Hindukush, Karakoram and Himalaya (HKH). The snow and glacier meltwater contribution feeds 10 major river basins downstream including Astore, Gilgit, Hunza, Jhelum, Kabul, Shyok and Shigar. Climate change is likely to fluctuate the runoff generated from such river basins concerning high and low streamflows. Widening the lens of focus, the present study examines the magnitude and timing of high flows variability as well as trends variability in low streamflows using Sen’s slope and the Mann-Kendall test in UIB from 1981 to 2016. The results revealed that the trend in the magnitude of the high flows decreased at most of the sub-basins including the Jhelum, Indus and Kabul River basins. Significantly increased high flows were observed in the glacier regime of UIB at Shigar and Shyok while decreased flows were predominant in Hunza River at Daniyor Bridge. A similar proclivity of predominantly reduced flows was observed in nival and rainfall regimes in terms of significant negative trends in the Jhelum, Kunhar, Neelum and Poonch River basins. The timing of the high flows has not changed radically as magnitude at all gauging stations. For the low flows, decreasing significant trends were detected in the annual flows as well as in other extremes of low flows (1-day, 7-day, 15-day). The more profound and decreasing pattern of low flows was observed in summer at most of the gauging stations; however, such stations exhibited increased low flows in autumn, winter and spring. The decrease in low flows indicates the extension of dry periods particularly in summer. The high-water demand in summer will be compromised due to consistently reducing summer flows; the lower the water availability, the lower will be the crop yield and electricity generation.

Assessment of Variability in Hydrological Droughts Using the Improved Innovative Trend Analysis Method

“…At the majority of the locations, there were significant increasing trends from June to August, which were endorsed by the previous studies [54,72]. Hydrological drought timeseries from October to March showed substantial lowering trends on a monthly scale, which is similar to the findings of earlier research that found clear patterns towards increasing streamflow from October to March [54,73]. However, hydrological drought timeseries from April to September exhibited significant increasing trends, and these results were also found to be consistent with preceding research [54,72,75].…”

“…Three (03) stations, i.e., Gilgit, Besham Qila, Kalam, and Chitral, detected significant decreasing trends in January, whereas Jhansi Post and Thal stations detected significant increasing trends. At Besham Qila, where the Indus River is flowing (upstream of Tarbela), it was found to be increasing at a rate of 6%, according to research [73]. The Besham flows from 1969 to 1995 were also examined by Ashraf et al [72], who discovered an escalating trend.…”