Identifying Major Hydrologic Change Drivers in a Highly Managed Transboundary Endorheic Basin: Integrating Hydro‐Ecological Models and Time Series Data Mining Techniques

Abstract

Endorheic basins and lakes play a crucial role in hydro-ecological functioning and aquatic biodiversity of arid and semiarid regions (Donnelly et al., 2020;Sheng, 2020). These ecosystems represent approximately 25% of Earth's land surface area and 50% of the world's water-stressed regions (J. Wang et al., 2018;Yapiyev et al., 2017), provide numerous ecosystem services to humans (e.g., water and food supply, pollutant retention, and recreation), and serve as critical habitats for aquatic, semiaquatic, and riparian wildlife and unique microorganisms (Oren, 2013;Zadereev et al., 2020). Despite the importance of endorheic basins for local and regional ecological functioning, they are one of the most threatened ecosystems in the world, with an increasing number of threatened and endangered species (Saccò et al., 2021;Zadereev et al., 2020). The endorheic lakes have shrunk globally at an alarming rate in recent decades due to the combined effects of global warming and long-term water misman agement to support agricultural and industrial demand, altering the fragile balance of these ecosystems. Recent hydrologic studies have shown that between 2002 and 2016, the global endorheic system has lost on average 106.3 Gt yr −1 of water storage, representing twice the loss observed in exorheic counterpart (J. Wang et al., 2018). While (freshwater) exorheic ecosystems have long been recognized as important resource, programs to protect (saline) endorheic lakes have been relegated significantly (Williams, 2002). Therefore, formulating mitigation strategies to restore and protect endorheic basins and lakes is urgent and imperative.Prior to formulating these strategies, it is crucial to understand and simulate the hydrologic response mechanisms of endorheic ecosystems to natural and anthropogenic stressors and identify the causal factors that have caused their environmental deterioration (Saccò et al., 2021). However, quantifying the relative contribution of climate variability and anthropogenic stressors in water budget dynamics of endorheic basins and lakes is challenging (Li et al., 2018). Hydrologic processes of highly managed agroecosystems are complex, and the lack of high-resolution spatial and temporal water budget data in endorheic basins with transboundary water issues further contributes to this problem. Water resources management under global warming hinders the efforts to solve water conflicts in

Comment on hess-2024-106

“…Previous studies on water resource assessment have explored the effects of climate change and anthropogenic on available water resources, including streamflow (Tan and Gan, 2015;Tan et al, 2023;Xin et al, 2019), baseflow (Ficklin et al, 2016;Tan et al, 2020), lake water (Acero Triana and Ajami, 2022;Tao et al, 2020), and groundwater (Han et al, 2020). Falkenmark and Rockström (2006) introduce a novel perspective on water resource assessment by categorizing water resources into BW and GW.…”