scholarly journals Drought Characteristics and Propagation in the Semiarid Heihe River Basin in Northwestern China

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Feng Ma ◽  
Lifeng Luo ◽  
Aizhong Ye ◽  
Qingyun Duan
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
River Basin ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
Meteorological Drought ◽  
Hydrological Drought ◽  
Heihe River Basin ◽  
Heihe River ◽  
Propagation Time ◽  
Drought Characteristics ◽  
Hydrological Droughts

Abstract Meteorological and hydrological droughts can bring different socioeconomic impacts. In this study, we investigated meteorological and hydrological drought characteristics and propagation using the standardized precipitation index (SPI) and standardized streamflow index (SSI), over the upstream and midstream of the Heihe River basin (UHRB and MHRB, respectively). The correlation analysis and cross-wavelet transform were adopted to explore the relationship between meteorological and hydrological droughts in the basin. Three modeling experiments were performed to quantitatively understand how climate change and human activities influence hydrological drought and propagation. Results showed that meteorological drought characteristics presented little difference between UHRB and MHRB, while hydrological drought events are more frequent in the MHRB. In the UHRB, there were positive relationships between meteorological and hydrological droughts, whereas drought events became less frequent but longer when meteorological drought propagated into hydrological drought. Human activities have obviously changed the positive correlation to negative in the MHRB, especially during warm and irrigation seasons. The propagation time varied with seasonal climate characteristics and human activities, showing shorter values due to higher evapotranspiration, reservoir filling, and irrigation. Quantitative evaluation showed that climate change was inclined to increase streamflow and propagation time, contributing from −57% to 63%. However, more hydrological droughts and shorter propagation time were detected in the MHRB because human activities play a dominant role in water consumption with contribution rate greater than (−)89%. This study provides a basis for understanding the mechanism of hydrological drought and for the development of improved hydrological drought warning and forecasting system in the HRB.

scholarly journals Meteorological Drought, Hydrological Drought, and NDVI in the Heihe River Basin, Northwest China: Evolution and Propagation

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Fanglei Zhong ◽  
Qingping Cheng ◽  
Ping Wang
Keyword(s):  
River Basin ◽  
Standardized Precipitation Index ◽  
Meteorological Drought ◽  
Condition Index ◽  
Hydrological Drought ◽  
Heihe River Basin ◽  
Heihe River ◽  
Propagation Time ◽  
Peak Intensity ◽  
Positive Effect

Understanding the evolution and propagation of different drought types is crucial to reduce drought hazards in arid and semiarid regions. Here, Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), Streamflow Drought Index (SDI), and Vegetation Condition Index (VCI) were used to investigate the spatiotemporal variation of different drought types and correlations between Pre (Pre-R)/post (Pos-R)-reservoir. Results showed that the average peak/intensity/duration/severity of meteorological droughts (MD) were greater in the Pre-R than in the Pos-R period in the upstream Heihe River Basin (UHRB), while there was little change between the Pre-R and Pos-R periods in the midstream Heihe River Basin (MHRB). The average peak/intensity/duration/severity of hydrological drought (HD) decreased in the mainstream for Yingluoxia (Ylx) but increased for Zhengyixia (Zyx) station in the Pos-R period. Propagation time decreased by 3 months (negative effect) in Ylx and increased by 8 months (positive effect) in Zyx compared with the Pre-R period. In the Pos-R period, propagation time increased (1–3 months) for tributaries (positive effect). Propagation times for the mainstream and tributaries varied for different seasons and time periods. Pearson’s correlation coefficient values were lower at short timescales (1–3 months) but higher at long timescales for the Pos-R period in Ylx and Zyx for SDI-1 with different timescales of SPI. The SDI and SPI had no lag in the UHRB and MHRB. However, VCI with SPI had a significant lag correlation at short timescales in the UHRB (lag 6 months) and MHRB (lag 4 months), and the VCI with SDI had a significant lag correlation for 1 month in the MHRB. The propagation time from MD to HD has been reduced for Pos-R in the UHRB. There was a positive effect (prolonged MD propagation HD time) in Pos-R but still faces serious drought stress in the MHRB.

scholarly journals Evolution characteristics and relationship of meteorological and hydrological droughts from 1961 to 2018 in Hanjiang River Basin, China

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lin Wang ◽  
Jianyun Zhang ◽  
Amgad Elmahdi ◽  
Zhangkang Shu ◽  
Yinghui Wu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
River Basin ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
Water Cycle ◽  
Standardized Precipitation Index ◽  
Meteorological Drought ◽  
Hydrological Drought ◽  
Evolution Characteristics ◽  
Hanjiang River ◽  
Hydrological Droughts ◽  
Meteorological Droughts

Abstract In the context of global warming and increasing human activities, the acceleration of the water cycle will increase the risk of basin drought. In this study, to analyze the spatial and temporal evolution characteristics of hydrological and meteorological droughts over the Hanjiang River Basin (HRB); the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and Standardized Runoff Index (SRI) were selected and applied for the period 1961–2018. In addition, the cross-wavelet method was used to discuss the relationship between hydrological drought and meteorological droughts. The results and analysis indicated that: (1) the meteorological drought in the HRB showed a complex cyclical change trend of flood-drought-flood from 1961 to 2018. The basin drought began to intensify from 1990s and eased in 2010s. The characteristics of drought evolution in various regions are different based on scale. (2) During the past 58 years, the hydrological drought in the HRB has shown a significant trend of intensification, particularly in autumn season. Also, the hydrological droughts had occurred frequently since the 1990s, and there were also regional differences in the evolution characteristics of drought in various regions. (3) Reservoir operation reduces the frequency of extreme hydrological drought events. The effect of reducing the duration and intensity of hydrological drought events by releasing water from the reservoir is most obvious at Huangjiagang Station, which is the nearest to Danjiangkou Reservoir. (4) The hydrological drought and meteorological drought in the HRB have the strongest correlation on the yearly scale. After 1990, severe human activities and climate change are not only reduced the correlation between hydrological drought and meteorological drought in the middle and lower reaches of the basin, but also reduced the lag time between them. Among them, the hydrological drought in the upper reaches of the basin lags behind the meteorological drought by 1 month, and the hydrological drought in the middle and lower reaches of the basin has changed from 2 months before 1990 to 1 month lagging after 1990.

scholarly journals Identifying a Transition Climate Zone in an Arid River Basin using a Hydrological Drought Index

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Libo Zhang ◽  
Yongqiang Liu ◽  
Lu Hao ◽  
Decheng Zhou ◽  
Cen Pan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
River Basin ◽  
Drought Index ◽  
Meteorological Drought ◽  
Hydrological Drought ◽  
Heihe River Basin ◽  
Heihe River ◽  
Climate Classification ◽  
Climate Zone ◽  
Annual Variability ◽  
Hydrological Drought Index

Abstract. Drought indices have been widely used in climate classification. However, there is not enough evidence for their ability in identifying the multiple climate types in areas with complex topography and landscape, especially in those areas with a transition climate. This study compares a meteorological drought index, the aridity index (AI) defined as the ratio of precipitation (P) to potential evapotranspiration (PET), with a hydrological drought index, the evaporative stress index (ESI) defined as the ratio of actual evapotranspiration (AET) to PET. We conducted this study using modeled high resolution climate data for period of 1980–2010 in the Heihe River Basin (HRB) in the arid northwestern China. PET was estimated using the Penman–Monteith and Hamon methods. The climate classified by AI shows two distinct climate types for the upper and the middle and lower basin reaches, while three types were found if ESI was used. This difference indicates that only ESI is able to identify a transition climate zone in the middle basin. This contrast between the two indices is also seen in the inter-annual variability and extreme dry/wet events. The magnitude of variability in the middle basin is close to that in the lower basin for AI, but different for ESI. AI has larger magnitude of the relative inter-annual variability and greater decreasing rate from 1980–2010 than ESI, suggesting the role of local hydrological processes in moderating extreme climate events. Thus, the hydrological drought index is better than the meteorological drought index for climate classification in the arid Heihe River Basin where local climate is largely determined by topography and landscape. We conclude that the land–surface processes and human disturbances play an important role in altering hydrological drought conditions and their spatial and temporal variability.

scholarly journals Seasonal drought predictability and forecast skill in the semi-arid endorheic Heihe River basin in Northwestern China

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Feng Ma ◽  
Lifeng Luo ◽  
Aizhong Ye ◽  
Qingyun Duan
Keyword(s):  
River Basin ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Dominant Role ◽  
Standardized Precipitation Index ◽  
Meteorological Drought ◽  
Hydrological Drought ◽  
Forecast Skill ◽  
Heihe River Basin ◽  
Heihe River ◽  
Drought Forecasting

Abstract. Endorheic and arid regions around the world are suffering from serious drought problems. In this study, a drought forecasting system based on eight state-of-the-art climate models from North American Multi-Model Ensemble (NMME) and a Distributed Time-Variant Gain Hydrological Model (DTVGM) was established and assessed over the upstream and midstream of Heihe River basin (UHRB and MHRB), a typical arid endorheic basin. The 3-month Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI3) and 1-month Standardized Streamflow Index (SSI1) were used to capture meteorological and hydrological drought, and values below -1 indicate drought events. The skill of the forecasting systems was evaluated in terms of Anomaly Correlation (AC) and Brier skill score (BSS). The UHRB and MHRB showed season-dependent meteorological drought predictability and forecast skill, with higher values during winter and autumn than that during spring. For hydrological forecasts, the forecast skill in the UHRB was higher than that in MHRB. Predicting meteorological droughts more than 2 months in advance became difficult because of complex climate mechanism. However, the hydrological drought forecasts could show some skills up to 3–6 lead months due to memory of initial hydrologic conditions (ICs) during cold and dry seasons. During wet seasons, there's no skillful hydrological predictions since lead-2 month because the dominant role of meteorological forcings. During spring, the improvement of hydrological drought predictions is the most significant as more streamflow was generated by seasonal snowmelt. Besides meteorological forcings and ICs, human activities have reduced the hydrological variability and increased hydrological predictability during the wet seasons in the MHRB.

scholarly journals Evolution Characteristics and Relationship of Meteorological and Hydrological Droughts from 1961 to 2018 in Hanjiang River Basin, China

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lin Wang ◽  
Jianyun Zhang ◽  
Amgad Elmahdi ◽  
Zhangkang Shu ◽  
Zhenxin Bao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
River Basin ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
Water Cycle ◽  
Standardized Precipitation Index ◽  
Meteorological Drought ◽  
Hydrological Drought ◽  
Evolution Characteristics ◽  
Hanjiang River ◽  
Hydrological Droughts ◽  
Meteorological Droughts

Abstract In the context of global warming and increasing human activities, the acceleration of the water cycle will increase the risk of basin drought. In this study, to analyze the spatial and temporal evolution characteristics of hydrological and meteorological droughts over the Hanjiang River Basin (HRB); the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and Standardized Runoff Index (SRI) were selected and applied for the period 1961–2018. In addition, the cross-wavelet method was used to discuss the relationship between hydrological drought and meteorological droughts. The results and analysis indicated that: (1) the meteorological drought in the HRB showed a complex cyclical change trend of flood-drought-flood from 1961 to 2018. The basin drought began to intensify from 1990s and eased in 2010s. The characteristics of drought evolution in various regions are different based on scale. (2) During the past 58 years, the hydrological drought in the HRB has shown a significant trend of intensification, particularly in autumn season. Also, the hydrological droughts had occurred frequently since the 1990s, and there were also regional differences in the evolution characteristics of drought in various regions. (3) Reservoir operation reduces the frequency of extreme hydrological drought events. The effect of reducing the duration and intensity of hydrological drought events by releasing water from the reservoir is most obvious at Huangjiagang Station, which is the nearest to Danjiangkou Reservoir. (4) The hydrological drought and meteorological drought in the HRB have the strongest correlation on the yearly scale. After 1990, severe human activities and climate change are not only reduced the correlation between hydrological drought and meteorological drought in the middle and lower reaches of the basin, but also reduced the lag time between them. Among them, the hydrological drought in the upper reaches of the basin lags behind the meteorological drought by 1 month, and the hydrological drought in the middle and lower reaches of the basin has changed from 2 months before 1990 to 1 month lagging after 1990.

scholarly journals Seasonal drought predictability and forecast skill in the semi-arid endorheic Heihe River basin in northwestern China

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (11) ◽  
pp. 5697-5709 ◽  
Author(s):  
Feng Ma ◽  
Lifeng Luo ◽  
Aizhong Ye ◽  
Qingyun Duan
Keyword(s):  
River Basin ◽  
Dominant Role ◽  
Standardized Precipitation Index ◽  
Meteorological Drought ◽  
Hydrological Drought ◽  
Forecast Skill ◽  
Heihe River Basin ◽  
Brier Score ◽  
Heihe River

Abstract. Endorheic and arid regions around the world are suffering from serious drought problems. In this study, a drought forecasting system based on eight state-of-the-art climate models from the North American Multi-Model Ensemble (NMME) and a Distributed Time-Variant Gain Hydrological Model (DTVGM) was established and assessed over the upstream and midstream of Heihe River basin (UHRB and MHRB), a typical arid endorheic basin. The 3-month Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI3) and 1-month Standardized Streamflow Index (SSI1) were used to capture meteorological and hydrological drought, and values below −1 indicate drought events. The skill of the forecasting systems was evaluated in terms of anomaly correlation (AC) and Brier score (BS) or Brier skill score (BSS). The predictability for meteorological drought was quantified using AC and BS with a “perfect model” assumption, referring to the upper limit of forecast skill. The hydrological predictability was to distinguish the role of initial hydrological conditions (ICs) and meteorological forcings, which was quantified by root-mean-square error (RMSE) within the ESP (Ensemble Streamflow Prediction) and reverse ESP framework. The UHRB and MHRB showed season-dependent meteorological drought predictability and forecast skill, with higher values during winter and autumn than that during spring. For hydrological forecasts, the forecast skill in the UHRB was higher than that in MHRB. Predicting meteorological droughts more than 2 months in advance became difficult because of complex climate mechanisms. However, the hydrological drought forecasts could show some skills up to 3–6 lead months due to memory of ICs during cold and dry seasons. During wet seasons, there are no skillful hydrological predictions from lead month 2 onwards because of the dominant role of meteorological forcings. During spring, the improvement of hydrological drought predictions was the most significant as more streamflow was generated by seasonal snowmelt. Besides meteorological forcings and ICs, human activities have reduced the hydrological variability and increased hydrological drought predictability during the wet seasons in the MHRB.

scholarly journals Water Productivity Evaluation under Multi-GCM Projections of Climate Change in Oases of the Heihe River Basin, Northwest China

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (10) ◽  
pp. 1706 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liu Liu ◽  
Zezhong Guo ◽  
Guanhua Huang ◽  
Ruotong Wang
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
River Basin ◽  
Water Productivity ◽  
Northwest China ◽  
Hexi Corridor ◽  
Heihe River Basin ◽  
Heihe River ◽  
Crop Water ◽  
The Heihe River Basin

As the second largest inland river basin situated in the middle of the Hexi Corridor, Northwest China, the Heihe River basin (HRB) has been facing a severe water shortage problem, which seriously restricts its green and sustainable development. The evaluation of climate change impact on water productivity inferred by crop yield and actual evapotranspiration is of significant importance for water-saving in agricultural regions. In this study, the multi-model projections of climate change under the three Representative Concentration Pathways emission scenarios (RCP2.6, RCP4.5, RCP8.5) were used to drive an agro-hydrological model to evaluate the crop water productivity in the middle irrigated oases of the HRB from 2021–2050. Compared with the water productivity simulation based on field experiments during 2012–2015, the projected water productivity in the two typical agricultural areas (Gaotai and Ganzhou) both exhibited an increasing trend in the future 30 years, which was mainly attributed to the significant decrease of the crop water consumption. The water productivity in the Gaotai area under the three RCP scenarios during 2021–2050 increased by 9.2%, 14.3%, and 11.8%, while the water productivity increased by 15.4%, 21.6%, and 19.9% in the Ganzhou area, respectively. The findings can provide useful information on the Hexi Corridor and the Belt and Road to policy-makers and stakeholders for sustainable development of the water-ecosystem-economy system.

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