Contributions of Climate Change, CO2, Land-Use Change, and Human Activities to Changes in River Flow across 10 Chinese Basins

Xi, Yi; Peng, Shushi; Ciais, Philippe; Guimberteau, Matthieu; Li, Yue; Piao, Shilong; Wang, Xuhui; Polcher, Jan; Jin, Yu; Zhang, Xuanze; Zhou, Feng; Bo, Yan; Ottlé, Catherine; Yin, Zun

doi:10.1175/jhm-d-18-0005.1

Cited by 26 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 74 publications

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“…Numerous studies focused on assessing the impacts of environmental changes on runoff [26,27,61,63]. Investigating the effects of environmental changes on runoff usually involves the application of hydrologic models [64,65].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Distinguishing the Relative Contribution of Environmental Factors to Runoff Change in the Headwaters of the Yangtze River

Guo

Wang

et al. 2019

Water

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The change in river flows at the basin scale reflects the combined influences of changes in various environmental factors associated with climatic and underlying surface properties. Distinguishing the relative contribution of each of these factors to runoff change is critical for sustainable water resource management, but it is also challenging. The headstream region of the Yangtze River, known as “China’s Water Tower”, has undergone a significant runoff change over the past decades. However, the relative contribution of environmental factors to runoff change is still unclear. Here, we designed a series of detrending experiments based on a grid-based hydrological model to quantify the combined influences of multiple environmental factors on runoff change and the relative contribution of an individual factor to runoff change. The results indicate that changes in climate and vegetation significantly increased water yield in the study basin over the past three decades, and the increase in water yield primarily came from the contribution from the upstream of the basin. On the basin scale, the change in precipitation dominated the runoff change that contributed up to 113.2% of the runoff change, followed by the wind speed change with a contribution rate of −15.1%. Other factors, including changes in temperature, relative humidity, sunshine duration (as a surrogate for net radiation), and albedo (as a surrogate for vegetation) had limited effects on runoff change, and the contribution rate of these factors to runoff change ranged from −5% to 5%. On spatial patterns, the influences of changes in some environmental factors on runoff changes were affected by elevation, particularly for temperature. The rising temperature had mixed effects on runoff change, which generally increased water yield at high altitudes of the basin but decreased water yield at low altitudes of the basin.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Distinguishing the Relative Contribution of Environmental Factors to Runoff Change in the Headwaters of the Yangtze River

Guo

Wang

et al. 2019

Water

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“…CC BY 4.0 License. ORCHIDEE does not include the irrigation effect on the soil moisture, ET, and vegetation growth, although the model can simulate this anthropogenic pressure (Xi et al, 2018). The snow processes are described using a 3-layer scheme of intermediate complexity (Wang et al, 2013), in which the snow albedo and insulating properties depend on the snow density and age.…”

Section: Ecvsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multi-variable evaluation of land surface processes in forced and coupled modes reveals new error sources to the simulated water cycle in the IPSL climate model

Mizuochi¹,

Ducharne²,

Chéruy³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Abstract. Evaluating land surface models (LSMs) using available observations is important to understand the potential and limitations of current Earth system models in simulating water- and carbon-related variables. To reveal the error sources of a land surface model (LSM), four essential climate variables have been evaluated in this paper (i.e., surface soil moisture, evapotranspiration, leaf area index, and surface albedo) via simulations with IPSL LSM ORCHIDEE (Organizing Carbon and Hydrology in Dynamic Ecosystems), particularly focusing on the difference between (i) forced simulations with atmospheric forcing data (WATCH-Forcing-DATA-ERA-Interim: WFDEI) and (ii) coupled simulations with the IPSL atmospheric general circulation model. Results from statistical evaluation using satellite- and ground-based reference data show that ORCHIDEE is well equipped to represent spatiotemporal patterns of all variables in general. However, further analysis against various landscape/meteorological factors (e.g., plant functional type, slope, precipitation, and irrigation) suggests potential uncertainty relating to freezing/snowmelt, temperate plant phenology, irrigation, as well as contrasted responses between forced and coupled mode simulations. The biases in the simulated variables are amplified in coupled mode via surface–atmosphere interactions, indicating a strong link between irrigation–precipitation and a relatively complex link between precipitation–evapotranspiration that reflects the hydrometeorological regime of the region (energy-limited or water-limited) and snow-albedo feedback in mountainous and boreal regions. The different results between forced and coupled modes imply the importance of model evaluation under both modes to isolate potential sources of uncertainty in the model.

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“…Other human activities, such as damming, groundwater withdrawal, water consumption, and land use change, can have substantial impacts on R of the river basin [55,56]. Land-use change accounts for <0.2% of the change in the runoff trend [57], while damming, groundwater withdrawal, and water consumption account for <2%, <1%, and <10% of the changes in the annual runoff [58], respectively. However, other research studies have indicated climate change as the main factor affecting R (accounting for 90% of the change in R in the YRB) [57,59,60,61].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improved Remotely Sensed Total Basin Discharge and Its Seasonal Error Characterization in the Yangtze River Basin

Chen

Fok

et al. 2019

Sensors

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Total basin discharge is a critical component for the understanding of surface water exchange at the land–ocean interface. A continuous decline in the number of global hydrological stations over the past fifteen years has promoted the estimation of total basin discharge using remote sensing. Previous remotely sensed total basin discharge of the Yangtze River basin, expressed in terms of runoff, was estimated via the water balance equation, using a combination of remote sensing and modeled data products of various qualities. Nevertheless, the modeled data products are presented with large uncertainties and the seasonal error characteristics of the remotely sensed total basin discharge have rarely been investigated. In this study, we conducted total basin discharge estimation of the Yangtze River Basin, based purely on remotely sensed data. This estimation considered the period between January 2003 and December 2012 at a monthly temporal scale and was based on precipitation data collected from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite, evapotranspiration data collected from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite, and terrestrial water storage data collected from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite. A seasonal accuracy assessment was performed to detect poor performances and highlight any deficiencies in the modeled data products derived from the discharge estimation. Comparison of our estimated runoff results based purely on remotely sensed data, and the most accurate results of a previous study against the observed runoff revealed a Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC) of 0.89 and 0.74, and a root-mean-square error (RMSE) of 11.69 mm/month and 14.30 mm/month, respectively. We identified some deficiencies in capturing the maximum and the minimum of runoff rates during both summer and winter, due to an underestimation and overestimation of evapotranspiration, respectively.

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Contributions of Climate Change, CO2, Land-Use Change, and Human Activities to Changes in River Flow across 10 Chinese Basins

Cited by 26 publications

References 74 publications

Distinguishing the Relative Contribution of Environmental Factors to Runoff Change in the Headwaters of the Yangtze River

Distinguishing the Relative Contribution of Environmental Factors to Runoff Change in the Headwaters of the Yangtze River

Multi-variable evaluation of land surface processes in forced and coupled modes reveals new error sources to the simulated water cycle in the IPSL climate model

Improved Remotely Sensed Total Basin Discharge and Its Seasonal Error Characterization in the Yangtze River Basin

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