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

Abstract

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.

Research Progress of Urban Floods under Climate Change and Urbanization: A Scientometric Analysis

“…The occurrence of urban floods is generally related to two main phenomena: the generation of runoff during precipitation events (flash flooding) and the overflow of watercourses (fluvial or overbank flooding) [8]. As for the reasons, on one hand, climate change increases the frequency and intensity of extreme weather, with more intermittent rainstorms, more severe droughts, and higher coastal storm surges [9,10], such as the rainstorms in Europe and northern China in July 2021. On the other hand, with the development of social productivity, the progress of science and technology, and the adjustment of industrial structure in a country or region, society has gradually transformed from a traditional rural one dominated by agriculture to a modern urban one dominated by non-agriculture such as industry (secondary) and service industry (tertiary).…”

Attribution Analysis for Runoff Change on Multiple Scales in a Humid Subtropical Basin Dominated by Forest, East China

“…Climate variability and human activity are suggested to be two primary driving factors for runoff variation [1]. Climate variability may alter runoff by changing the spatiotemporal distributions of temperature, evaporation, and precipitation [2]. Human activity includes land-use change, water withdraw, and hydraulic engineering operation, which exert impacts on runoff by changing the underlying properties and the runoff generation mechanisms of the basin [3].…”

“…Specifically, the field data-based method is often limited by the availability of long-term observations of paired experimental catchments. The diagrammatizing methods are easy for intuitive understanding, but the introduced parameters for actual evaporation estimation are difficult to be quantified [2]. Numerical calculation-based methods, particularly for hydrological model-based approaches, have been widely adopted in runoff attribution studies due to their consideration of basin hydrological processes.…”

“…In China, among seven major rivers, five large rivers (Yellow River [10,23], Haihe River [2,24], Huaihe River [25,26], Liao River [21], and Songhua River [27,28]) are situated in arid and semi-arid northern China, and have been widely investigated. In contrast, attribution for runoff change in the humid and semi-humid climate zone is insufficiently studied [29].…”

A Systematic Literature Mining of Sponge City: Trends, Foci and Challenges Standing Ahead

“…Cities are relatively vulnerable to surface water flooding due to the increase in artificial surfaces and decrease in green space, preventing excessive rainfall from entering the ground [2,3]. Climate change makes the situation even worse by causing greater extreme weather, with more severe droughts, more intermittent, more intense storms, and higher coastal storm surges [4,5]. Such situation is especially true in China [6][7][8].…”