Assessment of the Contributions of Climate Change and Human Activities to Runoff Variation: Case Study in Four Subregions of the Jinsha River Basin, China

Natural hydrological processes have been changed under the combined influences of climate change and intensive human activities in the Huangbaihe River Basin, where large-scale phosphate mining has been taking place. Therefore, evaluating the impact of climate change and intensive human activities on runoff variation and detecting the main driving factor leading to the variation are important for more efficient water resource management and more sustainable development of the regional economy. Despite numerous studies having been performed on this topic, little research focused on the impact of mining on runoff variation. The non-parametric Mann-Kendall (MK) trend test and accumulative anomaly methods were applied to identifying basic trends and change points of the hydro-meteorological elements over the period from 1978 to 2016. Then, the Soil Water and Assessment Tool (SWAT) and the Slope Changing Ratio of Accumulative Quantity (SCRAQ) were both used to quantify the contributions of climate change and anthropogenic activities on runoff variation. In this step, the runoff data were restored to their natural state before the construction of Xuanmiaoguan (XMG) dam. Due to the lack of locally observed evapotranspiration data, Global Land Evaporation Amsterdam Model and an empirical equation applied to obtain the evapotranspiration data. The results revealed that the change points are in 1985 and 2006. Therefore, the total period was divided into three periods, that is, the baseline period Ta (1978–1984), change period Tb (1985–2005) and change period Tc (2006–2016). Compared with the baseline period Ta, climate change dominates the runoff variation in the period Tb and is responsible for 60.5 and 74.4% of runoff variation, while human activities contribute the most to runoff variation for the period Tc (79.3 and 86.1%). Furthermore, an analysis of the underlying mechanism of underground phosphate mining indicates that mining can affect overland flow and baseflow simultaneously. This study can provide some information in determining the contributions of climate change and human activities in intensive phosphate mined basins and areas lack of evapotranspiration data.

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Analysis of Impacts of Climate Change and Human Activities on Hydrological Drought: a Case Study in the Wei River Basin, China

Water Resources Management ◽

10.1007/s11269-017-1877-1 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 32 (4) ◽

pp. 1421-1438 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Lei Zou ◽

Jun Xia ◽

Dunxian She

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

River Basin ◽

Human Activities ◽

Hydrological Drought ◽

The Wei River Basin ◽

Wei River Basin ◽

Wei River ◽

Impacts Of Climate Change

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Responses of Surface Runoff to Climate Change and Human Activities in the Arid Region of Central Asia: A Case Study in the Tarim River Basin, China

Environmental Management ◽

10.1007/s00267-013-0018-8 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 51 (4) ◽

pp. 926-938 ◽

Cited By ~ 46

Author(s):

Changchun Xu ◽

Yaning Chen ◽

Yapeng Chen ◽

Ruifeng Zhao ◽

Hui Ding

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Central Asia ◽

River Basin ◽

Human Activities ◽

Surface Runoff ◽

Arid Region ◽

Tarim River ◽

Tarim River Basin ◽

The Tarim River Basin

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Inconsistent hydrological frequency calculation and attribution analysis of annual runoff of Lancang river basin based on LWHM-LUCC model

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-16857 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Ping Xie ◽

Tao Yu ◽

Linqian Wu ◽

Ziyi Wu

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Land Use ◽

River Basin ◽

Human Activities ◽

Annual Runoff ◽

Lancang River ◽

Runoff Variation ◽

Attribution Analysis ◽

Frequency Calculation ◽

The Lancang River Basin

<p>In the context of global climate change and intensive human activities, the runoff process in the Lancang River Basin has been greatly changed. This study proposed a lumped watershed hydrological model considering land use/cover change (LWHM-LUCC) for the frequency calculation and attribution analysis of annual runoff of Lancang River Basin from physical causes aspect. We first detected the variability of precipitation, evaporation, and runoff time series at annual time scale of the Lancang River Basin during 1961&#8211;2014 through the hydrological variation diagnosis system. Then, the inconsistent runoff frequency calculation method based on LWHM-LUCC model were applied to analyze the annual runoff frequency distribution in past, current and future period, respectively. Besides, the contribution rates of climate change and human activities on runoff variation were quantatively determined based on LWHM-LUCC model and scenarios simulation. The result showed that there was an abrupt increase of evaporation in 2002, and an abrupt decrease of runoff in 2004. From the distant past period, near past period, to the current period, the design runoff in the Lancang River Basin showed a declined trend, whereas the runoff in the current and future periods remained basically unchanged, and the difference between current and distant past period was much larger than that between current and near past period. The contribution rates of precipitation, evaporation, land use and other human activities to runoff variation were around 38%, 31%, 0% and 31%, respectively. This indicated climate change has greater impact on runoff variation than human activity in the Lancang River Basin.</p>

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