Impacts on watershed-scale runoff and sediment yield resulting from synergetic changes in climate and vegetation

Zhang, Shanghong; Li, Zehao; Hou, Xiaoning; Yi, Yujun

doi:10.1016/j.catena.2019.04.007

Cited by 60 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…In addition, the runoff reduction was greater in semi-humid regions than that in the humid region, which might be because a larger portion of precipitation was used for ET in the semi-humid region. We found that, in the humid region, river runoff was mainly controlled by CFs, especially precipitation; however, the VFs played more important roles in the semi-humid region, and similar results were also previously documented (Liu M. et al, 2018;Zhang et al, 2019).…”

Section: Variation Of River Runoff and Its Difference By Regionssupporting

confidence: 90%

“…This inconsistent result may be related to the different roles of vegetation on water cycles at different climate zones. It has been well reported that the main factors influencing the hydrological cycle are meteorological factors ( Menzel and Bürger, 2002 ; Kling et al, 2012 ), but the impacts of vegetation should not be ignored ( Lei et al, 2014 ; Zhang et al, 2019 ), especially at the humid climates ( Shen et al, 2013 ). However, to the best of our knowledge, there is still a lack of studies on the quantification of vegetation effects on river runoff across basins with hydroclimatic gradients.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Influences of Shifted Vegetation Phenology on Runoff Across a Hydroclimatic Gradient

Chen

Geng

et al. 2022

Front. Plant Sci.

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Climate warming has changed vegetation phenology, and the phenology-associated impacts on terrestrial water fluxes remain largely unquantified. The impacts are linked to plant adjustments and responses to climate change and can be different in different hydroclimatic regions. Based on remote sensing data and observed river runoff of hydrological station from six river basins across a hydroclimatic gradient from northeast to southwest in China, the relative contributions of the vegetation (including spring and autumn phenology, growing season length (GSL), and gross primary productivity) and climatic factors affecting the river runoffs over 1982–2015 were investigated by applying gray relational analysis (GRA). We found that the average GSLs in humid regions (190–241 days) were longer than that in semi-humid regions (186–192 days), and the average GSLs were consistently extended by 4.8–13.9 days in 1982–2015 period in six river basins. The extensions were mainly linked to the delayed autumn phenology in the humid regions and to advanced spring phenology in the semi-humid regions. Across all river basins, the GRA results showed that precipitation (r = 0.74) and soil moisture (r = 0.73) determine the river runoffs, and the vegetation factors (VFs) especially the vegetation phenology also affected the river runoffs (spring phenology: r = 0.66; GSL: r = 0.61; autumn phenology: r = 0.59), even larger than the contribution from temperature (r = 0.57), but its relative importance is climatic region-dependent. Interestingly, the spring phenology is the main VF in the humid region for runoffs reduction, while both spring and autumn growth phenology are the main VFs in the semi-humid region, because large autumn phenology delay and less water supply capacity in spring amplify the effect of advanced spring phenology. This article reveals diverse linkages between climatic and VFs, and runoff in different hydroclimatic regions, and provides insights that vegetation phenology influences the ecohydrology process largely depending on the local hydroclimatic conditions, which improve our understanding of terrestrial hydrological responses to climate change.

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Section: Variation Of River Runoff and Its Difference By Regionssupporting

confidence: 90%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influences of Shifted Vegetation Phenology on Runoff Across a Hydroclimatic Gradient

Chen

Geng

et al. 2022

Front. Plant Sci.

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“…Vegetation cover is theoretically a dynamic process due to the influence of long-term climate change [30][31][32]. Although climate change has a limited impact on vegetation cover in the short term, neglecting the synergy between climate and vegetation cover may reduce the reliability of hydrological modeling when studying the hydrological responses to long-term climate change [33]. Therefore, developing a comprehensive understanding of climate and vegetation cover change factors, will help to predict the trend of various hydrological components in watersheds more accurately, which can provide decision support for the rational use of water resources and reduction of soil erosion under future climate change scenarios.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment of Climate Change and Associated Vegetation Cover Change on Watershed-Scale Runoff and Sediment Yield

Zhang

Lin

et al. 2019

Water

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Climate change has an important impact on water balance and material circulation in watersheds. Quantifying the influence of climate and climate-driven vegetation cover changes on watershed-scale runoff and sediment yield will help to deepen our understanding of the environmental effects of climate change. Taking the Zhenjiangguan Watershed in Sichuan Province, China as a case study, three downscaled general circulation models with two emission scenarios were used to generate possible climatic conditions for three future periods of P1 (2020–2039), P2 (2050–2069) and P3 (2080–2099). Differences in scenarios were compared with the base period 1980–1999. Then, a Normalized Difference Vegetation Index climate factor regression model was established to analyze changes to vegetation cover under the climate change scenarios. Finally, a Soil and Water Assessment Tool model was built to simulate the response of runoff and sediment yield in the three future periods under two different scenarios: only changes in climate and synergistic changes in climate and vegetation cover. The temperature and precipitation projections showed a significant increasing trend compared to the baseline condition for both emission scenarios. Climate change is expected to increase the average annual runoff by 15%–38% compared with the base period, and the average annual sediment yield will increase by 4%–32%. The response of runoff and sediment yield varies in different periods, scenarios, and sub-watersheds. Climate-driven vegetation cover changes have an impact on runoff and sediment yield in the watershed, resulting in a difference of 5.8%–12.9% to the total changes. To some extent, the changes in vegetation cover will inhibit the hydrological impact of climate changes. The study helps to clarify the effects of climate and vegetation cover factors on hydrological variations in watersheds and provides further support for understanding future hydrological scenarios and implementing effective protection and use of water and soil resources.

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“…Due to the effect of sediment trapping in the Lancang cascade dams, the sediment reduced by 74.1% in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta over a 55-year period (1961-2015) (Binh et al, 2020) [6]. In addition to the effects of dam construction, precipitation changes and vegetation changes resulted from climate changes (including changes of precipitation and temperature) may also have significant effects on runoff and sediment yield in the watershed (Song et al, 2016; [7,8]. The reduction in sediment load would lead to riverbed erosion (Binh et al, 2020;Zheng et al, 2018) [6,9] river channel…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Changes of Flow and Sediment Transport in the Lower Min River in Southeastern China under the Impacts of Climate Variability and Human Activities

Wang

Cui

et al. 2021

Water

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The Min River is the largest river in Fujian Province in southeastern China. The construction of a series of dams along the upper reaches of the Min River, especially the Shuikou Dam, which started filling in 1993, modified the flow processes at the lower Min River, leading to the significant increase in low-flows and slightly decrease in flood-flows. At the same time, reservoirs have more effects on the sediment transport process than flow process by trapping most sediment in the reservoirs, and greatly reduced the amount of sediment transporting downstream. Increase in vegetation cover also contributes to the decrease in sediment yield. The reduction in sediment together with excessive sand mining in the lower Min River resulted in the severe downward erosion of the riverbed. Using a reformulated elasticity approach to quantifying climatic and anthropogenic contributions to sediment changes, the relative contribution of precipitation variability and human activities to sediment reduction in the lower Min River are quantified, which shows that the sediment reduction is fully caused by human activities (including land use/land cover changes and dam construction).

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Impacts on watershed-scale runoff and sediment yield resulting from synergetic changes in climate and vegetation

Cited by 60 publications

References 42 publications

Influences of Shifted Vegetation Phenology on Runoff Across a Hydroclimatic Gradient

Influences of Shifted Vegetation Phenology on Runoff Across a Hydroclimatic Gradient

Assessment of Climate Change and Associated Vegetation Cover Change on Watershed-Scale Runoff and Sediment Yield

Changes of Flow and Sediment Transport in the Lower Min River in Southeastern China under the Impacts of Climate Variability and Human Activities

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