Spatiotemporal characteristics of alpine snow and ice melt under a changing regional climate: A case study in Northwest China

Li, Changbin; Qi, Jiaguo; Wang, Shuaibing; Yang, Linshan; Zou, Songbing; Zhu, Gangbing; Yang, Wenjin

doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2014.11.016

Cited by 6 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 70 publications

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“…The regional data was based on statistical relationship between meteorological and topographical factors. This relationship in fact reflected the main characteristics of the spatial pattern of alpine meteorology (Li et al, ).…”

Section: Study Area and Data Collectionmentioning

confidence: 80%

Identifying separate impacts of climate and land use/cover change on hydrological processes in upper stream of Heihe River, Northwest China

Yang

Feng

Yin

et al. 2017

Hydrological Processes

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141

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Climate change and land use/cover change (LUCC) are two factors that produce major impacts on hydrological processes. Understanding and quantifying their respective influence is of great importance for water resources management and socioeconomic activities as well as policy and planning for sustainable development. In this study, the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was calibrated and validated in upper stream of the Heihe River in Northwest China. The reliability of the SWAT model was corroborated in terms of the Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE), the correlation coefficient (R), and the relative bias error (BIAS). The findings proposed a new method employing statistical separation procedures using a physically based modeling system for identifying the individual impacts of climate change and LUCC on hydrology processes, in particular on the aspects of runoff and evapotranspiration (ET). The results confirmed that SWAT was a powerful and accurate model for diagnosis of a key challenge facing the Heihe River Basin. The model assessment metrics, NSE, R, and BIAS, in the data were 0.91%, 0.95%, and 1.14%, respectively, for the calibration period and 0.90%, 0.96%, and −0.15%, respectively, for the validation period. An assessment of climate change possibility showed that precipitation, runoff, and air temperature exhibited upward trends with a rate of 15.7 mm, 6.1 mm, and 0.38 °C per decade for the 1980 to 2010 period, respectively. Evaluation of LUCC showed that the changes in growth of vegetation, including forestland, grassland, and the shrub area have increased gradually while the barren area has decreased. The integrated effects of LUCC and climate change increased runoff and ET values by 3.2% and 6.6% of the total runoff and ET, respectively. Climate change outweighed the impact of LUCC, thus showing respective increases in runoff and ET of about 107.3% and 81.2% of the total changes. The LUCC influence appeared to be modest by comparison and showed about −7.3% and 18.8% changes relative to the totals, respectively. The increase in runoff caused by climate change factors is more than the offsetting decreases resulting from LUCC. The outcomes of this study show that the climate factors accounted for the notable effects more significantly than LUCC on hydrological processes in the upper stream of the Heihe River.

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Section: Study Area and Data Collectionmentioning

confidence: 80%

Identifying separate impacts of climate and land use/cover change on hydrological processes in upper stream of Heihe River, Northwest China

Yang

Feng

Yin

et al. 2017

Hydrological Processes

Self Cite

141

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Of the various comprehensive evaluation methods, radar graph analysis method is a visualized multi-attribute comprehensive evaluation method that intuitively displays the relative superiority of the evaluation object in various indicators and make overall evaluation at the same time. It has the characteristics of simplicity, intuition, and strong operability [9][10][11][12], and has been widely used in forestry and environment studies [5,[13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]. However, the radar plot used in these studies has one fatal defect-the non-uniqueness of feature vector area and perimeter caused by different ranking order of evaluation indicators [12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Novel Comprehensive Evaluation Method of Forest State Based on Unit Circle

Zhang¹,

Gao²,

Zhang³

et al. 2018

Forests

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Comprehensive evaluation of forest state is the precondition and critical step for forest management. To solve the problem that the radar plot and unit circle only focus on the value of each the evaluation index, this paper proposes a novel method for comprehensively and simultaneously evaluating the functionality and inhomogeneity of forest state based on the modified unit circle method. We evaluated the forest state of the Quercus aliena BL. var. acuteserrata Maxim. ex Wenz. broad-leaved mixed forest in the Xiaolong Mountains Forest Area of Gansu Province and the Pinus koraiensis Sieb. et Zucc. broad-leaved mixed forest in Jilin Province in China. According to the principle of comprehensive, scientific and operability, 10 evaluation indices on forest structure and vitality were selected to construct the evaluation indicator system. Each index was normalized based on the assignment method and ensured to be strictly positive based on reciprocal transformation method. The areas and arc length of the closed graph, formed by connecting every two adjacent indicators, in the radar plot and unit circle were extracted. Based on the isoperimetric theorem (isoperimetric inequality), a comprehensive evaluation model was constructed. Compared with radar chart and unit circle method, each index in the newly proposed unit circle method is represented by an independent sector region, reflecting the contribution of the index to the overall evaluation result. Each index has the same relative importance weight, contributing to the estimation the relative sizes of each aspect of forest state. The unique area and arc length of the closed graph help summarize the overall performance with a global score. The expression effect of improved unit circle has been enhanced, and as an English proverb put it, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” The new proposed method simultaneously evaluates the functionality and inhomogeneity of the forest state and it is a powerful tool for the diagnosis of forest state problems and the decision-making of forest management.

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Spatiotemporal variability of alpine precipitable water over arid northwestern China

Wang

et al. 2020

Hydrological Processes

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For a better understanding of the precipitable water in the arid northwestern China (NWC), we surveyed the water vapour variability on both sides of the alpine range crests based on the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission monthly precipitation data (TRMM 3B43). There were 12 target zones and 23 subzones in six mountain systems representatively selected according to alpine hydrogeomorphology. They were used for comparative analyses in time and space. Comparisons between the two sides of the range crests revealed that there is more precipitable water on the south slopes of the Qilian, Altun, Kunlun, and Altai Mountains, on the north slope of the Tian Mountains, and on the east slope of Helan Mountains. High correlations were detected between precipitable water for both sides of the range crests in target zones, while low correlations were found among precipitable water separately averaged in the Kunlun, Tian, and Qilian Mountains including both sides of the range crests. The proportion of precipitable water during the rainy season gradually increased from west to east along the mountains. Temporally, precipitation presented synchronous increases or decreases on the two sides of the range crests in most of the target zones during the time period from 1998 to 2016, and an overall increase in alpine annual precipitable water was found in the area, except for the decrease in the Altun and western Tian Mountains. The summer decay dominated the decrease in these two target zones, while strengthened conveyance was observed in other seasons, especially in spring and autumn, which compensated for, and led to, total increases in precipitable water in most of the target zones. All of the above findings were indicative of differences in vapour transport from outside areas into diverse alpine systems in the arid NWC, which could be schematically evidenced by the spatial patterns of monthly and annual water vapour conveyance retrieved from the TRMM precipitation data.

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Spatiotemporal characteristics of alpine snow and ice melt under a changing regional climate: A case study in Northwest China

Cited by 6 publications

References 70 publications

Identifying separate impacts of climate and land use/cover change on hydrological processes in upper stream of Heihe River, Northwest China

Identifying separate impacts of climate and land use/cover change on hydrological processes in upper stream of Heihe River, Northwest China

A Novel Comprehensive Evaluation Method of Forest State Based on Unit Circle

Spatiotemporal variability of alpine precipitable water over arid northwestern China

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