Impact of climate change and human activities on the changes of ecological flow indicators in the Lake Poyang Basin since 1960s

Separating the impact of climate change and human activities on runoff is an important topic in hydrology, and a large number of methods and theories have been widely used. In this paper, we review the current papers on separating the impacts of climate and human activities on runoff, summarize the progress of relevant research methods and applications in recent years, and discuss future research needs and directions.

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Quantifying the Impact of Climate Change and Human Activities on Streamflow in a Semi-Arid Watershed with the Budyko Equation Incorporating Dynamic Vegetation Information

Water ◽

10.3390/w10121781 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 10 (12) ◽

pp. 1781 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Lei Tian ◽

Jiming Jin ◽

Pute Wu ◽

Guo-yue Niu

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Human Activities ◽

Yellow River ◽

Resource Planning ◽

Impact Of Climate Change ◽

Climate Change Information ◽

Grain For Green Project ◽

Drying Trend ◽

The Impact ◽

The Wuding River

Understanding hydrological responses to climate change and land use and land cover change (LULCC) is important for water resource planning and management, especially for water-limited areas. The annual streamflow of the Wuding River Watershed (WRW), the largest sediment source of the Yellow River in China, has decreased significantly over the past 50 years at a rate of 5.2 mm/decade. Using the Budyko equation, this study investigated this decrease with the contributions from climate change and LULCC caused by human activities, which have intensified since 1999 due to China’s Grain for Green Project (GFGP). The Budyko parameter that represents watershed characteristics was more reasonably configured and derived to improve the performance of the Budyko equation. Vegetation changes were included in the Budyko equation to further improve its simulations, and these changes showed a significant upward trend due to the GFGP based on satellite data. An improved decomposition method based on the Budyko equation was used to quantitatively separate the impact of climate change from that of LULCC on the streamflow in the WRW. Our results show that climate change generated a dominant effect on the streamflow and decreased it by 72.4% in the WRW. This climatic effect can be further explained with the drying trend of the Palmer Severity Drought Index, which was calculated based only on climate change information for the WRW. In the meantime, although human activities in this watershed have been very intense, especially since 1999, vegetation cover increase contributed a 27.6% decline to the streamflow, which played a secondary role in affecting hydrological processes in the WRW.

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Grid-Scale Impact of Climate Change and Human Influence on Soil Erosion within East African Highlands (Kagera Basin)

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ◽

10.3390/ijerph18052775 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 18 (5) ◽

pp. 2775

Author(s):

Chaodong Li ◽

Zhanbin Li ◽

Mingyi Yang ◽

Bo Ma ◽

Baiqun Wang

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Soil Erosion ◽

Human Activities ◽

Global Climate ◽

Qualitative Assessment ◽

Human Influence ◽

Impact Of Climate Change ◽

Soil Erosion Rate ◽

East African Highlands ◽

The Impact

Under global climate change and pressure from human activities, soil erosion is becoming a major concern in the quest for regional sustainable development in the Kagera basin (KB). However, few studies in this region have comprehensively considered the impact of climate change and human influence on soil erosion, and the associated processes are unclear. Based on the premise of quantifying climate change, human influence, and soil erosion, this study undertook a neighborhood analysis as the theoretical support, for a grey relation analysis which was conducted to realize the qualitative assessment of the influence of climate change and human activities on soil erosion. The results show that 90.32% of the KB saw climate change as having a greater influence on soil erosion than human influence, with the remaining area 9.68% seeing human influence having a greater impact than climate change, mainly as a result of the effect of rangeland and farmland. The average soil erosion rate of the KB shows a very low level (10.54 t ha−1 yr−1), with rangeland and farmland being the main land use/land cover (LULC) types that see soil loss, followed by forest, wetland, and built-up areas. The climate change trends of the KB show the most dramatic changes in the northeast and southwest, gradually decreasing towards the line crossing from the Birunga National Park (Rwanda) to the Keza district (Tanzania). The human influence intensity (HII) shows a high level in the KB (21.93), where it is higher in the west and lower in the east of the basin.

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Impacts of Climate and Anthropogenic Activities on Streamflow Regimes in the Beiluo River, China

Water ◽

10.3390/w13202892 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (20) ◽

pp. 2892

Author(s):

Zhibo Xie ◽

Xingmin Mu ◽

Peng Gao ◽

Changxue Wu ◽

Dexun Qiu

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Water Resources ◽

Human Activities ◽

Potential Evapotranspiration ◽

Anthropogenic Activities ◽

Annual Streamflow ◽

Impact Of Climate Change ◽

Daily Streamflow ◽

Significant Downward Trend ◽

The Impact

Quantitatively assessing the characteristics of river streamflow variation and conducting research on attribution identification are the basis for formulating climate-change response strategies and rational use of water resources. Based on the daily streamflow data of the Zhuangtou Hydrological Station in 1970–2018, this paper analyzes the streamflow changes in the Beiluo River Basin and studies the impact of climate change and anthropogenic activities on the streamflow in this basin. A non-parametric Mann–Kendall test and Pettitt’s test were used to determine the trend and detect abrupt changes of streamflow and baseflow. The method based on precipitation and potential evapotranspiration, as well as the double-mass curve of precipitation–streamflow, was established to evaluate the impact of climate change and non-climate factors on annual streamflow. The results reveal a statistically significant downward trend (p = 0.01) in both annual streamflow and baseflow, with the abrupt point year in 1994 and 1988, respectively. When comparing to a modest declining trend in annual average precipitation, we see that the temperature showed a significant upward trend (p = 0.01), whose abrupt point year was 1996. Under the policy of returning farmland to forest, land-use analysis shows that the area of farmland had decreased by 222.4 km2, of which 31.4% was mainly converted into the forestland. By the end of 2015, the area of forestland had increased by 123.4 km2, which has largely caused streamflow decrease. For the method based on precipitation and potential evapotranspiration, climate change contributed 43.7% of the annual streamflow change, and human activities (mainly refers to LUCC) contributed 56.3%. For the DMC of precipitation–streamflow, the precipitation contributed 9.4%, and non-precipitation factors (mainly refers to human activities) contributed 90.6%, and human activities played a more vital part in driving streamflow reduction in different decades, with a contribution rate of more than 70%. This study is of great practical significance to the planning, management, development and utilization of water resources in basins.

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