Impacts of Land-Use and Climate Changes on Hydrologic Processes in the Qingyi River Watershed, China
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 18, Issue 11
Abstract
The impacts of human-induced land-use and climate changes on hydrologic processes have become a great challenge and attracted widespread attention of many researchers. Dramatic changes in land use and climate have occurred in the mountainous Qingyi River watershed in southwest China in the last three decades. Variable infiltration capacity (VIC), a large-scale hydrologic model, was used in this study to assess the impacts of land-use and climate changes on surface runoff, base flow, streamflow, and evapotranspiration (ET) of this watershed. The analysis for this study includes (1) investigation of change in historical land-use patterns, (2) detection of climate change (precipitation and mean temperature), and (3) simulation and assessment of hydrologic responses to these changes. The Mann-Kendall test was used to identify the long-term monotonic trends in precipitation and temperature for the period of 1980–2005. The results suggest no significant change in annual precipitation and a significant increase in annual temperature, particularly in February, April, July, and September. The analysis of three land-use maps reveals that the conversions between forest and shrubland/grassland were the predominant land-use change over the past three decades. Hydrologic simulations show that the influence of climate change on hydrologic processes was stronger than those of land-use change. Monthly variation of the river flow was mainly attributed to seasonal variation in precipitation. However, ET responded significantly to the land-use change in several subwatersheds where single land cover conversion occurred dominantly. The decrease in surface runoff and base flow caused by climate change was enhanced by changes in land use, whereas the reduction in ET was offset by reforestation over the study period. Furthermore, the impact of deforestation or reforestation on hydrologic processes was more significant in the dry season than other seasons. The results from this study can be a useful reference for decision making in land-use planning and water resource managements in this region.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
This study has been supported by the National Natural Science Foundation (41030636, 50879017) and the National Science and Technology Support Programme (2008BAB29B08-02). The authors also would like to give special thanks to Professor Zhongbo Yu for his help with the comments and English writing.
References
Arnell, N. W. (1999). “The effect of climate change on hydrological regimes in Europe: A continental perspective.” Glob. Environ. Change, 9(1), 5–23.
Arnell, N. W. (2003). “Relative effects of multi-decadal climatic variability and changes in the mean and variability of climate due to global warming: Future streamflows in Britain.” J. Hydrol., 270(3–4), 195–213.
Bewket, W., and Sterk, G. (2005). “Dynamics in land cover and its effect on stream flow in the Chemoga watershed, Blue Nile basin, Ethiopia.” Hydrol. Process., 19(2), 445–458.
Bouraoui, F., Galbiati, L., and Bidoglio, G. (2002). “Climate change impacts on nutrient loads in the Yorkshire Ouse catchment (UK).” Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 6(2), 197–209.
Bowling, L. C., Storck, P., and Lettenmaier, D. P. (2000). “Hydrologic effects of logging in western Washington, United States.” Water Resour. Res., 36(11), 3223–3240.
Cherkauer, K. A., Bowling, L. C., and Lettenmaier, D. P. (2003). “Variable infiltration capacity cold land process model updates.” Global Planet. Change, 38(1–2), 151–159.
Cherkauer, K. A., and Lettenmaier, D. P. (1999). “Hydrologic effects of frozen soils in the upper Mississippi River basin.” J. Geophys. Res., 104(D16), 19599–19610.
Christensen, N. S., Wood, A. W., Voisin, N., Lettenmaier, D. P., and Palmer, R. N. (2004). “The effects of climate change on the hydrology and water resources of the Colorado river basin.” Clim. Change, 62(1–3), 337–363.
Coe, M. T., Costa, M. H., and Soares-Filho, B. S. (2009). “The influence of historical and potential future deforestation on the stream flow of the Amazon River–Land surface processes and atmospheric feedbacks.” J. Hydrol., 369(1–2), 165–174.
Cosby, B. J., Hornberger, G. M., Clapp, R. B., and Ginn, T. R. (1984). “A statistical exploration of the relationships of soil mixture characteristics to the physical properties of soils.” Water Resour. Res., 20(6), 682–690.
Cuo, L., Lettenmaier, D. P., Mattheussen, B., Storck, P., and Wiley, M. (2008). “Hydrologic prediction for urban watersheds with the distributed hydrology–soil–vegetation model.” Hydrol. Process., 22(21), 4205–4213.
Douglas, E. M., Vogel, R. M., and Kroll, C. N. (2000). “Trends in floods and low flows in the United States: Impact of spatial correlation.” J. Hydrol., 240(1–2), 90–105.
Fohrer, N., Haverkamp, S., Eckhardt, K., and Frede, H. G. (2001). “Hydrologic response to land use changes on the catchment scale.” Phys. Chem. Earth Part B, 26(7–8), 577–582.
Franchini, M., and Pacciani, M. (1991). “Comparative analysis of several conceptual rainfall-runoff models.” J. Hydrol., 122(1–4), 161–219.
Fritsch, U., Katzenmaier, D., and Bronstert, A. (2001). “Land-use scenarios for flood risk assessment studies.” Development of european landscapes, Ü. Mander, A. Printsmann, and H. Palang, eds., Vol. 2, International Association for Landscape Ecology (IALE), Tartu.
Goossens, C. H., and Berger, A. (1986). “Annual seasonal climatic variations over the Northern Hemisphere and Europe during the last century.” Ann. Geophys., 4(4), 385–399.
Hamlet, A. F., and Lettenmaier, D. P. (1999). “Effects of climate change on hydrology and water resources in the Columbia river basin.” J. Am. Water Resour. Assoc., 35(6), 1597–1623.
Hamlet, A. F., and Lettenmaier, D. P. (2007). “Effects of 20th century warming and climate variability on flood risk in the western U.S.” Water Resour. Res., 43(6), 1–17.
Hirsch, R. M., and Slack, J. R. (1984). “A non-parametric trend test for seasonal data with serial dependence.” Water Resour. Res., 20(6), 727–732.
Hong, N. M., Chu, H. J., Lin, Y. P., and Deng, D. P. (2010). “Effects of land cover changes induced by large physical disturbances on hydrological responses in Central Taiwan.” Environ. Monit. Assess., 166(1–4), 503–520.
Institute of Geographic Science, and Natural Resources Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. (2009). “Land cover dataset of China.” 〈http://westdc.westgis.ac.cn〉 (Jun. 3, 2009).
Kendall, M. G. (1975). Rank correlation methods, Griffin, London.
Legesse, D., Vallet-Coulomb, D., and Gasse, F. (2003). “Hydrological response of a catchment to climate and land use changes in Tropical Africa: Case study South Central Ethiopia.” J. Hydrol., 275(1–2), 67–85.
Liang, X., and Lettenmaier, D. P. (1994). “A simple hydrologically based model of land surface water and energy fluxes for general circulation models.” J. Geophys. Res., 99(D7), 14415–14428.
Liang, X., Lettenmaier, D. P., and Wood, E. F. (1996a). “One-dimensional statistical dynamic representation of subgrid spatial variability of precipitation in the two-layer variable infiltration capacity model.” J. Geophys. Res., 101(D16), 21403–21422.
Liang, X., Wood, E. F., and Lettenmaier, D. P. (1996b). “Surface soil moisture parameterization of the VIC-2L model: Evaluation and modification.” Global Planet. Change, 13(1–4), 195–206.
Liuzzo, L., Noto, L. V., Vivoni, E. R., and Loggia, G. L. (2010). “Basin-scale water resources assessment in Oklahoma under synthetic climate change scenarios using a fully distributed hydrologic model.” J. Hydrol. Eng., 15(2), 107–122.
Lohmann, D., Raschke, E., Nijssen, B., and Lettenmaier, D. P. (1998). “Regional scale hydrology: I. Formulation of the VIC-2L model coupled to a routing model.” Hydrol. Sci. J., 43(1), 131–141.
Long, H. L., et al. (2006). “Land use and soil erosion in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River: Some socio-economic considerations on China’s grain-for-green programme.” Land Degrad. Dev., 17(6), 589–603.
Ma, X., Xu, J. C., Luo, L., Aggarwal, S. P., and Li, J. T. (2009). “Response of hydrological processes to land-cover and climate changes in Kejie watershed, south-west China.” Hydrol. Process., 23(8), 1179–1191.
Mann, H. B. (1945). “Non-parametric tests against trend.” Econometrica, 13(3), 245–259.
Mao, D. Z., and Cherkauer, K. A. (2009). “Impacts of land-use change on hydrologic responses in the Great Lakes region.” J. Hydrol., 374(1–2), 71–82.
Matheussen, B., Kirschbaum, R. L., Goodman, I. A., O’Donnell, G. M., and Lettenmaier, D. P. (2000). “Effects of land cover change on streamflow in the interior Columbia River basin (USA and Canada).” Hydrol. Process., 14(5), 867–885.
Maurer, E. P., Wood, A. W., Lettenmaier, D. P., and Nijssen, B. (2002). “A long-term hydrologically based dataset of land surface fluxes and states for the conterminous United States.” J. Clim., 15(22), 3237–3251.
Moiwo, J. P., Lu, W. X., Zhao, Y. S., Yang, Y. H., and Yang, Y. M. (2010). “Impact of land use on distributed hydrological processes in the semi-arid wetland ecosystem of Western Jilin.” Hydrol. Process., 24(4), 492–503.
Morán-Tejeda, E., Ceballos-Barbancho, A., and Llorente-Pinto, J. M. (2010). “Hydrological response of Mediterranean headwaters to climate oscillations and land-cover changes: The mountains of Duero River basin (Central Spain).” Global Planet. Change, 72(1–2), 39–49.
Nash, J. E., and Sutcliffe, J. V. (1970). “Review flow forecasting through conceptual models I: A discussion of principles.” J. Hydrol., 10(3), 282–290.
National Aeronautics, and Space Administration (NASA)/USGS. (2009). “SRTM 90m digital elevation data.” 〈http://srtm.csi.cgiar.org〉 (Jun. 3, 2009).
Niehoff, D., Fritsch, U., and Bronstert, A. (2002). “Land-use impacts on storm-runoff generation: Scenarios of land-use change and simulation of hydrological response in a meso-scale catchment in SW-Germany.” J. Hydrol., 267(1–2), 80–93.
Nijssen, B., O’Donnell, G. M., and Lettenmaier, D. P. (2001). “Predicting the discharge of global rivers.” J. Clim., 14(15), 3307–3323.
Novotny, E. V., and Stefan, H. G. (2007). “Stream flow in Minnesota: Indicator of climate change.” J. Hydrol., 334(3–4), 319–333.
Peng, G. K., Li, Z. Y., and Cai, F. X. (1985). “The relationship between topography and precipitation in Yaan district.” Plateau Meteorol., 4(3), 230–240 (in Chinese).
Pfister, L., Kwadijk, J., Musy, A., Bronstert, A., and Hoffmann, L. (2004). “Climate change, land use change and runoff prediction in the Rhine–Meuse basins.” River Res. Appl., 20(3), 229–241.
Reynolds, C. A., Jackson, T. J., and Rawls, W. J. (1999). “Estimating available water content by linking the FAO soil map of the world with global soil profile databases and pedo-transfer functions.” Proc., AGU 1999 Spring Conf., NOAA National Geophysical Data Center, Boulder, CO.
Sneyers, R. (1975). “Sur hlanalyse statistique des series d’observations.” Technical Note, World Meteorological Organization (WMO), Geneva.
Su, F. G., Adam, J. C., Bowling, L. C., and Lettenmaier, D. P. (2005). “Streamflow simulation of the terrestrial arctic domain.” J. Geophys. Res., 110(D8), D08112.
Su, F. G., and Xie, Z. H. (2003). “A model for assessing effects of climate change on runoff of in China.” Prog. Nat. Sci., 13(5), 502–507 (in Chinese).
VanShaar, J. R., Haddeland, I., and Lettenmaier, D. P. (2002). “Effects of land-cover changes on the hydrological response of interior Columbia River basin forested catchments.” Hydrol. Process., 16(13), 2499–2520.
Wang, S. F., Kang, S. Z., Zhang, L., and Li, F. S. (2008). “Modelling hydrological response to different land-use and climate change scenarios in the Zamu River basin of northwest China.” Hydrol. Processes, 22(14), 2502–2510.
Wang, Y. J., Jiang, T., Yu, C. Y., and Shi, Y. F. (2005). “Trend of evapotranspiration in the Yangtze River Basin in 1961–2000.” Adv. Clim. Change Res., 1(3), 99–105 (in Chinese).
Wu, X., Shen, C. Y., Liu, R. M., and Ding, X. W. (2008). “Land use/cover dynamics in response to changes in environmental and socio-political forces in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, China.” Sens., 8(12), 8104–8122.
Yang, D. W., Sun, F. B., Liu, Z. Y., Cong, Z. T., and Lei, Z. D. (2006). “Interpreting the complementary relationship in non-humid environments based on the Budyko and Penman hypotheses.” Geophys. Res. Lett., 33(18), L18402.
Yang, Y. H., and Tian, F. (2009). “Abrupt change of runoff and its major driving factors in Haihe River Catchment, China.” J. Hydrol., 374(3–4), 373–383.
Yong, B., et al. (2010). “Hydrologic evaluation of multisatellite precipitation analysis standard precipitation products in basins beyond its inclined latitude band: A case study in Laohahe basin, China.” Water Resour. Res., 46(7), W07542.
Zhang, X. J. (2006). “Application research on VIC model in Chinese humid areas.” Ph.D. thesis, Hohai Univ., Nanjing, China (in Chinese).
Zhao, R. J. (1984). Hydrological simulation–Xinanjiang model and Shanbei model, Water Resources and Electric Power, Beijing (in Chinese).
Zhou, D. G., Huang, R. H., and Huang, G. (2009). “Variations of climate and vegetation cover over the upper reaches of Yangtze River in the past decades.” Trans. Atmos. Sci., 32(2), 368–385 (in Chinese).
Zhu, Y., and Day, R. L. (2005). “Analysis of streamflow trends and the effects of climate in Pennsylvania, 1971 to 2001.” J. Am. Water Resour. Assoc., 41(6), 1393–1405.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 18 • Issue 11 • November 2013
Pages: 1495 - 1512
Copyright
© 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Aug 28, 2010
Accepted: Aug 3, 2011
Published online: Aug 5, 2011
Discussion open until: Jan 5, 2012
Published in print: Nov 1, 2013
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.