Quantifying the relative impact of climate and human activities on streamflow

Ahn, Kuk‐Hyun; Merwade, Venkatesh

doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2014.04.062

Cited by 204 publications

(115 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…Various methods have been developed to isolate hydrological impacts of land use/cover change from those of climate change (Wang et al, 2013;Wang, 2014;Ahn and Merwade, 2014), which can be classified into following types: (i) paired catchment approach (Brown et al, 2005); (ii) empirically statistical methods (Wei and Zhang, 2010;Zhang et al, 2011); (iii) physically-based hydrological models (Wang et al, 2013;López-Moreno et al, 2014;Serpa et al, 2015;Buendia et al, 2016); (iv) elasticity or sensitivity based method (Schaake, 1990;Sankarasubramanian et al, 2001;Arora, 2002;Roderick and Farquhar, 2011); (v) eco-hydrological approach (Tomer and Schilling, 2009);and (vi) decomposition method (Wang and Hejazi, 2011).…”

Section: Methods Of Attribution Analysis On Streamflow Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Determining the hydrological responses to climate variability and land use/cover change in the Loess Plateau with the Budyko framework

Gao

Wang

et al. 2016

Science of The Total Environment

195

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• Elasticities of Q and R c to climate variability and catchment characteristic were derived.• Contributions of climate variability and land use/cover changes to reductions of Q and R c were determined.• Relationship between ecological restoration and hydrological responses was quantified. Understanding and quantifying the impacts of land use/cover change and climate variability on hydrological responses are important to the design of water resources and land use management strategies for adaptation to climate change, especially in water-limited areas. The elasticity method was used to detect the responses of streamflow and runoff coefficient to various driving factors in 15 main catchments of the Loess Plateau, China between 1961 and 2009. The elasticity of streamflow (Q) and runoff coefficient (R c ) to precipitation (P), potential evapotranspiration (E 0 ), and catchment characteristics (represented by the parameter m in Fu's equation) were derived based on the Budyko hypothesis. There were two critical values of m = 2 and E 0 /P = 1 for the elasticity of Q and R c . The hydrological responses were mainly affected by catchment characteristics in water-limited regions (E 0 /P N 1), and in humid areas (E 0 /P b 1), climate conditions played a more important role for cases of m N 2 whereas catchment characteristics had a greater impact for cases of m b 2. The annual Q and R c in 14 of the 15 catchments significantly decreased with average reduction of 0.87 mm yr −1 and 0.18% yr −1 , respectively. The mean elasticities of Q to P, E 0 and m were 2.66, −1.66 and −3.17, respectively. The contributions of land use/ cover change and P reduction to decreased Q were 64.75% and 41.55%, respectively, while those to decreased R c were 75.68% and 32.06%, respectively. In contrast, the decreased E 0 resulted in 6.30% and 7.73% increase of Q and R c , respectively. The contribution of land use/cover changes was significantly and positively correlated with the G R A P H I C Contents lists available at ScienceDirectScience of the Total Environment j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w . e l s e v i e r . c o m / l o c a t e / s c i t o t e n v increase in the percentage of the soil and water conservation measures area (p b 0.05). The R c significantly and linearly decreased with the vegetation coverage (p b 0.01). Moreover, the R c linearly decreased with the percentage of measures area in all catchments (eight of them were statistically significant with p b 0.05).

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Section: Methods Of Attribution Analysis On Streamflow Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Determining the hydrological responses to climate variability and land use/cover change in the Loess Plateau with the Budyko framework

Gao

Wang

et al. 2016

Science of The Total Environment

195

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“…Several studies used the merit of the availability of long time series data to compare before and after the construction of the hydropower reservoirs (e.g. Ye et al, 2003;Adam et al, 2007;Adam and Lettenmaier, 2008;Arrigoni et al, 2010;Ahn and Merwade, 2014;Tang et al, 2014;Zhang et al, 2015). However, without the required after-construction data, such comparative visualization and characterization of impacts become immensely challenging.…”

Section: Modelling Discharge Release From Operating Hydropower Reservmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The patterns of timing and magnitude of streamflow essentially depend on climatic variables such as precipitation (Zhang et al, 2007;Min et al, 2011;Souvignet et al, 2013;Ahn and Merwade, 2014), temperature, and the resulting altered evapotranspiration rates (Vörösmarty et al, 2000;Santer et al, 2011;Trenberth, 2011;Ahn and Merwade, 2014), as well as on the modification of the hydrological systems by humans introducing water infrastructure such as reservoirs and damming, interbasin water transfers, and construction of weirs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…548 A. B. M. Firoz et al: Quantifying human impacts on hydrological drought served in anthropogenically modified river basins, in particular those altered by hydropower development and operation, than in hydrological systems which are only affected by climate variability and change (Arrigoni et al, 2010;Ahn and Merwade, 2014;Tang et al, 2014). Such alterations of the hydrological system often negatively affect downstream discharge patterns and communities dependent on the provision of freshwater for irrigation and domestic water supply (Rossi et al, 2009;Zhou et al, 2012;Song et al, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Quantifying human impacts on hydrological drought using a combined modelling approach in a tropical river basin in central Vietnam

Firoz¹,

Nauditt²,

Fink

et al. 2018

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Hydrological droughts are one of the most damaging disasters in terms of economic loss in central Vietnam and other regions of South-east Asia, severely affecting agricultural production and drinking water supply. Their increasing frequency and severity can be attributed to extended dry spells and increasing water abstractions for e.g. irrigation and hydropower development to meet the demand of dynamic socioeconomic development. Based on hydro-climatic data for the period from 1980 to 2013 and reservoir operation data, the impacts of recent hydropower development and other alterations of the hydrological network on downstream streamflow and drought risk were assessed for a mesoscale basin of steep topography in central Vietnam, the Vu Gia Thu Bon (VGTB) River basin. The Just Another Modelling System (JAMS)/J2000 was calibrated for the VGTB River basin to simulate reservoir inflow and the naturalized discharge time series for the downstream gauging stations. The HEC-ResSim reservoir operation model simulated reservoir outflow from eight major hydropower stations as well as the reconstructed streamflow for the main river branches Vu Gia and Thu Bon. Drought duration, severity, and frequency were analysed for different timescales for the naturalized and reconstructed streamflow by applying the daily varying threshold method.Efficiency statistics for both models show good results. A strong impact of reservoir operation on downstream discharge at the daily, monthly, seasonal, and annual scales was detected for four discharge stations relevant for downstream water allocation. We found a stronger hydrological drought risk for the Vu Gia river supplying water to the city of Da Nang and large irrigation systems especially in the dry season. We conclude that the calibrated model set-up provides a valuable tool to quantify the different origins of drought to support cross-sectorial water management and planning in a suitable way to be transferred to similar river basins.

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“…Land use changes have a strong influence on local hydrological processes and affect regional and global climate change [3][4][5]. There has been growing interest to understand how climatic variables are affected by external forces such as agricultural activities [6][7][8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Oasis Irrigation-Induced Hydro-Climatic Effects: A Case Study in the Hyper-Arid Region of Northwest China

et al. 2018

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Abstract:The response of potential evapotranspiration (ET0) to widespread irrigation is important to fully understand future regional climate changes and to infer adaptive management of agricultural water resources. The quantitative impact of irrigation on ET0 from 1960 to 2013 was evaluated using historical time series data of daily meteorological observations in the hyper-arid region of northwest China. The decreasing trends in ET0 were accelerated for meteorological stations in regions with oasis agriculture, especially in the summer and during the growing season. Irrigation led to a cooling effect on temperature, increased relative humidity and precipitation. All of these changes contributed to a larger decrease of ET0 trend. The findings of this study advance our insight into the effects of irrigation on dynamics in ET0 and meteorological factors. Further investigations to understand how ET0 responds to climate change and agricultural irrigation could provide guidance for determining effective measures of water resources for adapting to global change.

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Quantifying the relative impact of climate and human activities on streamflow

Cited by 204 publications

References 52 publications

Determining the hydrological responses to climate variability and land use/cover change in the Loess Plateau with the Budyko framework

Determining the hydrological responses to climate variability and land use/cover change in the Loess Plateau with the Budyko framework

Quantifying human impacts on hydrological drought using a combined modelling approach in a tropical river basin in central Vietnam

Oasis Irrigation-Induced Hydro-Climatic Effects: A Case Study in the Hyper-Arid Region of Northwest China

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