scholarly journals Quantifying the impact of climate variability and human activities on the streamflow of the Qingzhang River

Author(s):  
Pengfei Meng ◽  
Zheng Ren ◽  
Bin Shi ◽  
Tengfei Jia
2017 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 177-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zharong Pan ◽  
Xiaohong Ruan ◽  
Mingkai Qian ◽  
Jian Hua ◽  
Nan Shan ◽  
...  

AbstractThe water shortage in the Huaihe River Basin (HRB), China, has been aggravated by population growth and climate change. To identify the characteristics of streamflow change and assess the impact of climate variability and human activities on hydrological processes, approximately 50 years of natural and observed streamflow data from 20 hydrological stations were examined. The Mann–Kendall test was employed to detect trends. The results showed the following. (i) Both the natural and the observed streamflow in the HRB present downward trends, and the decreasing rate of observed streamflow is generally faster than that of the natural streamflow. (ii) For the whole period, negative trends dominate in the four seasons in the basin. The highest decreasing trends for two kinds of streamflow both occurred in spring, and the lowest ones were in autumn and winter. (iii) Based on the above analysis and quantifying assessment for streamflow decrease, human activity was the main driving factor in the Xuanwu (80.78%), Zhuangqiao (79.92%), Yongcheng (74.80%), and Mengcheng (64.73%) stations which all belong to the Huaihe River System (HRS). On the other hand, climate variability was the major driving factor in the Daguanzhuang (68.89%) and Linyi (63.38%) stations which all belong to the Yishusi River System (YSR).


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 889-899 ◽  
Author(s):  
Farshid Zolfagharpour ◽  
Bahram Saghafian ◽  
Majid Delavar

Abstract Human activities (HA) and/or climate variability (CV) may be two major factors impacting natural flow regime (NFR). This study was conducted following two objectives. The first was to develop scenario-based hydrological modeling (SBHM) to disentangle the natural and human-induced impacts on flow regime. The second objective was to quantify the interaction between temperature and precipitation for the assessment of CV. To do so, six scenarios were defined to evaluate either the impact of HA, CV or both. Four major results were achieved: (1) the interaction between temperature and precipitation was more prominent in basin upstream areas, which reduced the streamflow by 9% in the entire simulation period; (2) when separating the effects of climatic and human factors, SBHM results in comparison with those of the climate elasticity analysis showed no significant differences; (3) HA were the main force driving the streamflow reduction in the study basin; (4) a 5 °C increase in air temperature in the future would lead to an increase of 1.6% in average annual streamflow, and 41% in peak runoff.


2007 ◽  
Vol 21 (25) ◽  
pp. 3485-3491 ◽  
Author(s):  
Li-Juan Li ◽  
Lu Zhang ◽  
Hao Wang ◽  
Juan Wang ◽  
Jun-Wei Yang ◽  
...  

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 1547-1560 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jianxia Chang ◽  
Hongxue Zhang ◽  
Yimin Wang ◽  
Yuelu Zhu

Abstract. Water resources in river systems have been changing under the impact of both climate variability and human activities. Assessing the respective impact on decadal streamflow variation is important for water resource management. By using an elasticity-based method and calibrated TOPMODEL and VIC hydrological models, we quantitatively isolated the relative contributions that human activities and climate variability made to decadal streamflow changes in the Jinghe basin, located in the northwest of China. This is an important watershed of the Shaanxi province that supplies drinking water for a population of over 6 million people. The results showed that the maximum value of the moisture index (E0∕P) was 1.91 and appeared in 1991–2000, and the decreased speed of streamflow was higher since 1990 compared with 1960–1990. The average annual streamflow from 1990 to 2010 was reduced by 26.96 % compared with the multiyear average value (from 1960 to 2010). The estimates of the impacts of climate variability and human activities on streamflow decreases from the hydrological models were similar to those from the elasticity-based method. The maximum contribution value of human activities was 99 % when averaged over the three methods, and appeared in 1981–1990 due to the effects of soil and water conservation measures and irrigation water withdrawal. Climate variability made the greatest contribution to streamflow reduction in 1991–2000, the values of which was 40.4 %. We emphasized various source of errors and uncertainties that may occur in the hydrological model (parameter and structural uncertainty) and elasticity-based method (model parameter) in climate change impact studies.


2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 12747-12788
Author(s):  
J. Chang ◽  
H. Zhang ◽  
Y. Wang ◽  
Y. Zhu

Abstract. Water resources in river systems have been changing under the impact of both climate variability and human activities. Assessing the respective impact on decadal streamflow variation is important for water resource management. By using an elasticity-based method and calibrated TOPMODEL and VIC hydrological models, we quantitatively isolated the relative contributions that human activities and climate variability made to decadal streamflow changes in Jinghe basin, located in the northwest of China. This is an important watershed of Shaanxi Province that supplies drinking water for a population of over 6 million people. The results showed that the maximum value of the moisture index (E0/P) was 1.91 and appeared in 1991–2000 and that the decreased speed of streamflow was higher since 1990. The average annual streamflow from 1990 to 2010 was reduced by 26.96 % compared with the multi-year average value. The estimates of climate variability and the impact of human activities on streamflow decreases from the hydrological models were similar to those from the elasticity-based method. The maximum contribution value of human activities was appeared in 1981–1990 due to the effects of soil and water conservation measures and irrigation water withdrawal. Climate variability made the greatest contribution to reduction in 1991–2000, the values of which were 99 and 40.4 % when averaged over the three methods. We emphasized various source of errors and uncertainties that may occur in the hydrological model (parameter and structural uncertainty) and elasticity-based method (model parameter) in climate change impact studies.


2012 ◽  
Vol 44 (5) ◽  
pp. 875-885 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chesheng Zhan ◽  
Cunwen Niu ◽  
Xiaomeng Song ◽  
Chongyu Xu

Both the time series analysis method and hydrological modeling approach are integrated to analyze the streamflow response to climate variability and human activities in the Bai River basin, northern China using data from 1986 to 1998 in this study. Also, the quantification and separation of effects from climate variability and human activities is investigated. First, the Fu formula based on Budyko hypothesis was applied to explore the integrated underlying surface characteristics in the whole basin, and then the SIMHYD model was calibrated and validated using the data from 1986 to 1990 (pre-treatment period). The calibrated model was then used to simulate streamflow in the period 1991 to 1998 (testing period) and obtain quantitative assessment on the impacts of climate variability and human activities. The difference of observed streamflows between the pre-treatment period and the testing period reflects the combined influence of climate variability and human activities in the basin, while the difference between simulated and observed streamflow during the testing period reflects the impact of human activities in the catchment. The results show that the contribution rate of climate to the streamflow change in the basin is 37.5 and 62.5% for human activities. Human activities exerted a dominant influence upon streamflow change in the Bai River basin.


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