Dominant climatic factors driving annual runoff changes at the catchment
scale across China

Huang, Zhongwei; Yang, Hanbo; Yang, Dawen

doi:10.5194/hess-20-2573-2016

Cited by 35 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…The two to five amplification factors for runoff to precipitation were detected in the northern China, which is consistent with the previous findings (Huang et al, ; Yang et al, ). Besides, similar amplification for precipitation was also be found in the southwest of Australia (Silberstein et al, ).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

“…Climatic elasticity methods have been widely used to assess climate change impact on streamflow (Huang et al, 2016;Kumar et al, 2016;Wang et al, 2016;Yang et al, 2008Yang et al, , 2014. The climatic elasticity methods are comparable to more complex hydrological modeling approaches for evaluating climate change impact on the long-term streamflow changes (Teng et al, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Deducing Climatic Elasticity to Assess Projected Climate Change Impacts on Streamflow Change across China

Liu

Zhang

et al. 2017

JGR Atmospheres

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Climatic elasticity has been widely applied to assess streamflow responses to climate changes. To fully assess impacts of climate under global warming on streamflow and reduce the error and uncertainty from various control variables, we develop a four‐parameter (precipitation, catchment characteristics n, and maximum and minimum temperatures) climatic elasticity method named PnT, based on the widely used Budyko framework and simplified Makkink equation. We use this method to carry out the first comprehensive evaluation of the streamflow response to potential climate change for 372 widely spread catchments in China. The PnT climatic elasticity was first evaluated for a period 1980–2000, and then used to evaluate streamflow change response to climate change based on 12 global climate models under Representative Concentration Pathway 2.6 (RCP2.6) and RCP 8.5 emission scenarios. The results show that (1) the PnT climatic elasticity method is reliable; (2) projected increasing streamflow takes place in more than 60% of the selected catchments, with mean increments of 9% and 15.4% under RCP2.6 and RCP8.5 respectively; and (3) uncertainties in the projected streamflow are considerable in several regions, such as the Pearl River and Yellow River, with more than 40% of the selected catchments showing inconsistent change directions. Our results can help Chinese policy makers to manage and plan water resources more effectively, and the PnT climatic elasticity should be applied to other parts of the world.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Deducing Climatic Elasticity to Assess Projected Climate Change Impacts on Streamflow Change across China

Liu

Zhang

et al. 2017

JGR Atmospheres

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“…10). This finding is supported by some previous studies (Dan et al, 10 2012;Wang et al, 2016;Huang et al, 2016;Liu et al, 2017b). The correlations were smaller in the Yellow River basin, Hai River basin, and Huai River basin than other basins, even less than 0.5 for some grids in the Northwest River basins and the source regions of the Yellow River basin (Fig.…”

Section: Major Factors Controlling Changes In River Runoff and Tewrsupporting

confidence: 80%

“…There were significant negative correlations between annual river runoff change and annual mean maximum temperature change in most areas 15 across China. Increasing annual maximum temperature would lead to river runoff decrease in most areas because of increasing evapotranspiration (Wang et al, 2015;Huang et al, 2016), especially in the southern China (Fig. 10b).…”

Section: Major Factors Controlling Changes In River Runoff and Tewrmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial-temporal changes in river runoff and terrestrial ecosystem water retention under 1.5 °C and 2 °C warming scenarios across China

Zhai¹,

Tao²,

Xu³

2017

Preprint

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Abstract. The Paris Agreement set a long-term temperature goal of holding the global average temperature increase to below 2.0℃ above pre-industrial levels, and pursuing efforts to limit this to 1.5℃, it is therefore important to understand the impacts of climate change under 1.5℃ and 2.0℃ warming scenarios for climate adaptation and mitigation. Here, climate scenarios by four Global Circulation Models (GCMs) for the baseline (2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015), 1.5℃ and 2.0℃ warming scenarios (2106-2115) were used to drive the validated Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) hydrological model to investigate the impacts of global 15 warming on river runoff and Terrestrial Ecosystem Water Retention (TEWR) in China. The trends in annual mean temperature, precipitation, river runoff and TEWR were analysed at the grid and basin scale. Results showed that there were large uncertainties in climate scenarios from the different GCMs, which led to large uncertainties in the impact assessment. The differences among the four GCMs were larger than differences between the two warming scenarios. The interannual variability of river runoff increased notably in areas where it was projected to increase, and the interannual variability increased notably 20 from 1.5℃ warming scenario to 2.0℃ warming scenario. By contrast, TEWR would remain relatively stable. Both extreme low and high river runoff would increase under the two warming scenarios in most areas in China, with high river runoff increasing more. And the risk of extreme river runoff events would be higher under 2.0℃ warming scenario than under 1.5℃ warming scenario in term of both extent and intensity. River runoff was significantly positively correlated to precipitation, while increase in maximum temperature would generally cause river runoff to decrease through increasing evapotranspiration. 25Likewise, precipitation also played a dominant role in affecting TEWR. Our findings highlight climate change mitigation and adaptation should be taken to reduce the risks of hydrological extreme events.

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“…Global warming is likely to have major impacts on the hydrological cycle (Huntington, 2006;Milliman et al, 2008;Arnell and Gosling, 2013), such as changing precipitation patterns and increasing risks of extreme hydrological events (Wang et al, 2012;Zhang et al, 2016). China is vulnerable to future climate change; the impacts of climate change on water resources in China have been of key concern (Piao et al, 2010;Leng et al, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial–temporal changes in runoff and terrestrial ecosystem water retention under 1.5 and 2 °C warming scenarios across China

Zhai

Tao

Xu³

2018

Earth Syst. Dynam.

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Abstract. The Paris Agreement set a long-term temperature goal of holding the global average temperature increase to below 2.0 ∘C above pre-industrial levels, pursuing efforts to limit this to 1.5 ∘C; it is therefore important to understand the impacts of climate change under 1.5 and 2.0 ∘C warming scenarios for climate adaptation and mitigation. Here, climate scenarios from four global circulation models (GCMs) for the baseline (2006–2015), 1.5, and 2.0 ∘C warming scenarios (2106–2115) were used to drive the validated Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) hydrological model to investigate the impacts of global warming on runoff and terrestrial ecosystem water retention (TEWR) across China at a spatial resolution of 0.5∘. This study applied ensemble projections from multiple GCMs to provide more comprehensive and robust results. The trends in annual mean temperature, precipitation, runoff, and TEWR were analyzed at the grid and basin scale. Results showed that median change in runoff ranged from 3.61 to 13.86 %, 4.20 to 17.89 %, and median change in TEWR ranged from −0.45 to 6.71 and −3.48 to 4.40 % in the 10 main basins in China under 1.5 and 2.0 ∘C warming scenarios, respectively, across all four GCMs. The interannual variability of runoff increased notably in areas where it was projected to increase, and the interannual variability increased notably from the 1.5 to the 2.0 ∘C warming scenario. In contrast, TEWR would remain relatively stable, the median change in standard deviation (SD) of TEWR ranged from −10 to 10 % in about 90 % grids under 1.5 and 2.0 ∘C warming scenarios, across all four GCMs. Both low and high runoff would increase under the two warming scenarios in most areas across China, with high runoff increasing more. The risks of low and high runoff events would be higher under the 2.0 than under the 1.5 ∘C warming scenario in terms of both extent and intensity. Runoff was significantly positively correlated to precipitation, while increase in maximum temperature would generally cause runoff to decrease through increasing evapotranspiration. Likewise, precipitation also played a dominant role in affecting TEWR. Our results were supported by previous studies. However, there existed large uncertainties in climate scenarios from different GCMs, which led to large uncertainties in impact assessment. The differences among the four GCMs were larger than differences between the two warming scenarios. Our findings on the spatiotemporal patterns of climate impacts and their shifts from the 1.5 to the 2.0 ∘C warming scenario are useful for water resource management under different warming scenarios.

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Dominant climatic factors driving annual runoff changes at the catchment scale across China

Cited by 35 publications

References 45 publications

Deducing Climatic Elasticity to Assess Projected Climate Change Impacts on Streamflow Change across China

Deducing Climatic Elasticity to Assess Projected Climate Change Impacts on Streamflow Change across China

Spatial-temporal changes in river runoff and terrestrial ecosystem water retention under 1.5 °C and 2 °C warming scenarios across China

Spatial–temporal changes in runoff and terrestrial ecosystem water retention under 1.5 and 2 °C warming scenarios across China

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