Impact of human activities on the decline of water level,Qinghai Lake

Abstract Qinghai Lake, as the largest saline inland lake in China, plays an important role in the surrounding semi-arid ecosystem. In recent years, the lake water level has increased rapidly; however, the driving factors causing water body changes are not fully understood. This study aims to investigate the hydrological processes in Qinghai Lake from 1959 to 2016, and to discuss their possible linkages to climatic change and human activity. The results indicate that both the water level and lake area gradually declined to their minima in 2004, before increasing rapidly. Annual evaporation and total runoff vary widely, but have shown an overall shift from decreasing to increasing trends. The annual average temperature has followed an increasing trend, and annual precipitation has increased rapidly since 2004. Hydrological changes (water level and lake) are positively correlated with runoff inflow into the lake and negatively correlated with evaporation from the lake surface. The water body expansion in recent years can be attributed to the decreasing difference between precipitation/river runoff and evaporation. The total water consumption by human activities has had a limited contribution to the water body changes. We conclude that hydrological changes have depended more on climatic variations than on human activities.

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The effects of ENSO, climate change and human activities on the water level of Lake Toba, Indonesia: a critical literature review

Geoscience Letters ◽

10.1186/s40562-021-00191-x ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 8 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Hendri Irwandi ◽

Mohammad Syamsu Rosid ◽

Terry Mart

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Water Level ◽

Human Activities ◽

Southern Oscillation ◽

Climatic Conditions ◽

Water Levels ◽

Dominant Factor ◽

Climate Projections ◽

Continuous Increase ◽

The Future

AbstractThis research quantitatively and qualitatively analyzes the factors responsible for the water level variations in Lake Toba, North Sumatra Province, Indonesia. According to several studies carried out from 1993 to 2020, changes in the water level were associated with climate variability, climate change, and human activities. Furthermore, these studies stated that reduced rainfall during the rainy season due to the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the continuous increase in the maximum and average temperatures were some of the effects of climate change in the Lake Toba catchment area. Additionally, human interventions such as industrial activities, population growth, and damage to the surrounding environment of the Lake Toba watershed had significant impacts in terms of decreasing the water level. However, these studies were unable to determine the factor that had the most significant effect, although studies on other lakes worldwide have shown these factors are the main causes of fluctuations or decreases in water levels. A simulation study of Lake Toba's water balance showed the possibility of having a water surplus until the mid-twenty-first century. The input discharge was predicted to be greater than the output; therefore, Lake Toba could be optimized without affecting the future water level. However, the climate projections depicted a different situation, with scenarios predicting the possibility of extreme climate anomalies, demonstrating drier climatic conditions in the future. This review concludes that it is necessary to conduct an in-depth, comprehensive, and systematic study to identify the most dominant factor among the three that is causing the decrease in the Lake Toba water level and to describe the future projected water level.

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Water balance and forecasting of water level change in Qinghai Lake

Journal of Lake Sciences ◽

10.18307/1994.0402 ◽

1994 ◽

Vol 6 (4) ◽

pp. 298-307 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

Qu Yaoguang ◽

Keyword(s):

Water Balance ◽

Water Level ◽

Qinghai Lake ◽

Water Level Change ◽

Level Change

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Landscape reconstruction and the relationship between human and environment in Yaowuyao area, Northeastern Tibetan Plateau since 15000 yr BP

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-18646 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Naimeng Zhang ◽

Qinghai Xu ◽

Dongju Zhang ◽

Ulrike Herzschuh ◽

Zhongwei Shen ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Tibetan Plateau ◽

Human Activity ◽

Human Activities ◽

Tibet Plateau ◽

Qinghai Lake ◽

Lake Basin ◽

Human Beings ◽

Landscape Reconstruction ◽

Qinghai Lake Basin ◽

Early Human

<p>Understanding the paleoenvironment (such as climate and landscape) in the area where the early ancient human appears on the Tibetan Plateau is an interesting topic. Based on the results of pollen data on the Yaowuyao loess section of the Qinghai Lake Basin, we used landscape reconstruction algorithms to reconstruct the changes in vegetation cover for 15,000 years. It is shown that the vegetation in the Yaowuyao area changed from temperate steppe (15-7.5 ka) to forest-steppe (7.5-4 ka). Compared with previous studies on the sediment in Qinghai Lake, our study can better reflect the local environment of the Qinghai Lake basin. Furthermore, based on the paleoclimate change data and archeological data from the surrounding areas, it is noticed that while precipitation increases and trees increase, human activities decrease. This may be caused by the substance and strategies of the ancient human beings that have adapted to the steppe. In addition, our results also show that the intensity of ancient human activity has a negative correlation with plant biodiversity, which may be related to human disturbance to the environment. Our paleoecological and environmental study not only shows the paleoenvironment of the early human activities on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau but also revealed possible early human activity signals.</p>

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STABILITY ANALYSIS FOR EMBANKMENTS WITH GEOELECTRICITY

Jurnal Sains dan Teknologi Mitigasi Bencana ◽

10.29122/jstmb.v15i2.4333 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 15 (2) ◽

pp. 114-122

Author(s):

Teddy Wartono Sudinda

Keyword(s):

Stability Analysis ◽

Groundwater Flow ◽

Water Level ◽

Human Activities ◽

Soil Layer ◽

Flow Patterns ◽

Soil Density ◽

The Stability ◽

The Right

Abstract The collapse of the embankment is a problem that needs attention to find the right solution, so that the risk can be minimized. The condition of the embankment is influenced by the strength of the soil layer of the embankment, groundwater flow in the embankment, the condition of the water level of the embankment and human activities around the embankment. Changes in the quality of soil density in the embankment can form cavity zones within the embankment which cause changes in groundwater flow patterns in the embankment. The degradation of the soil layer of the embankment can cause piping, overtopping which is the cause of erosion of the embankment body and disturbs the stability of the embankment. Therefore, to determine the condition of the embankment soil layer, research on the stability of the embankment has been carried out using the geoelectric method at the location of the embankment in the Cipancuh and Penjalin reservoirs, so that an image of the embankment soil layer is obtained to determine the cavity zones in the embankment, the flow pattern in the embankment soil layer. Keywords: cavity zones, flow patterns, geoelectric methods, the stability of the embankment.

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Unraveling the Role of Human Activities and Climate Variability in Water Level Changes in the Taihu Plain Using Artificial Neural Network

Water ◽

10.3390/w11040720 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 11 (4) ◽

pp. 720 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Yuefeng Wang ◽

Hossein Tabari ◽

Youpeng Xu ◽

Yu Xu ◽

Qiang Wang

Keyword(s):

Neural Network ◽

Artificial Neural Network ◽

Climate Variability ◽

Water Level ◽

Human Activities ◽

Nonlinear Dependence ◽

Rapid Urbanization ◽

Evaluation Period ◽

Water Level Changes ◽

Artificial Neural

Water level, as a key indicator for the floodplain area, has been largely affected by the interplay of climate variability and human activities during the past few decades. Due to a nonlinear dependence of water level changes on these factors, a nonlinear model is needed to more realistically estimate their relative contribution. In this study, the attribution analysis of long-term water level changes was performed by incorporating multilayer perceptron (MLP) artificial neural network. We took the Taihu Plain in China as a case study where water level series (1954–2014) were divided into baseline (1954–1987) and evaluation (1988–2014) periods based on abrupt change detection. The results indicate that climate variables are the dominant driver for annual and seasonal water level changes during the evaluation period, with the best performance of the MLP model having precipitation, evaporation, and tide level as inputs. In the evaluation period, the contribution of human activities to water level changes in the 2000s is higher than that in the 1990s, which indicates that human activities, including the rapid urbanization, are playing an important role in recent years. The influence of human activities, especially engineering operations, on water level changes in the 2000s is more evident during the dry season (March-April-May (MAM) and December-January-February (DJF)).

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Dynamic mechanism between human activities and ecosystem services: A case study of Qinghai lake watershed, China

Ecological Indicators ◽

10.1016/j.ecolind.2020.106528 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 117 ◽

pp. 106528 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Yuan Qi ◽

Xihong Lian ◽

Hongwei Wang ◽

Jinlong Zhang ◽

Rui Yang

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Human Activities ◽

Dynamic Mechanism ◽

Qinghai Lake

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Response characteristics of water level dynamic of the Baiyangdian Wetland to climate change and human activities

E3S Web of Conferences ◽

10.1051/e3sconf/201913101071 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 131 ◽

pp. 01071

Author(s):

Xiaofan Qi ◽

Dechao Yin ◽

Yonghui An ◽

Yushan Wang ◽

Lei Gong

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Water Level ◽

Human Activities ◽

Time Lags ◽

The Sustainable Development ◽

Response Characteristics ◽

Wetland Water ◽

Water Conservancy ◽

Baiyangdian Wetland ◽

And Control

Water level dynamics of Wetlands are influenced by both climate change and human activities. Understanding the influence characteristics is important for the management of wetland water resources and ecology. Based on the water level dynamic and precipitation of the Baiyangdian Wetland, and the NPI index, the paper analyzes the response characteristics of the water level dynamic to the precipitation, and the teleconnections between the water level dynamic and the NPI by adopting method of wavelet analysis. Results show that climate change plays an important role on the response of the water level dynamic to the precipitation and also to the NPI, and human activities can significantly change the response characteristics. The response time lags of the water level dynamics to the NPI is longer than that of the water level dynamics to the precipitations, which indicates that the wetland precipitation might be partially influenced by the NPI. The knowledge of the response characteristics obtained in the paper is beneficial for water conservancy and control of the wetland, and is favorable for the sustainable development of its eco-environment.

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