Using Hydrologic Simulation to Explore the Impacts of Climate Change on Runoff in the Huaihe River Basin of China
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 18, Issue 11
Abstract
Climate change has become an environmental issue of utmost importance, and one that will challenge existing water resource management practices in many ways. The Huaihe River, one of China’s major rivers, is frequently subject to flooding and drought and, for the purposes of assessing the implications of climate change on water resources in the Huaihe River Basin, the variable infiltration capacity (VIC) model with a resolution of was calibrated using data from 11 well-gauged subbasins. The model parameters from the well-gauged stations were then transferred to poorly gauged areas according to similarities in, for example, climate conditions and soil texture. The calibrated VIC model was subsequently used to study the potential impacts of three climate change scenarios on basin runoff, taking projected runoff for 1961–1990 as the baseline. In general, the results showed that although the annual runoff will likely increase across the basin under the different scenarios, regional flooding and regional shortage in water resources will be exacerbated under the impacts of global warming.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
This study has been financially supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (grant 2010CB951103), the International Science & Technology Cooperation Program of China (grant 2010DFA24330), and the ACCC project funded by DFID, SDC, and DECC. Thanks also to the anonymous reviewers and editors.
References
Arnell, N. W. (1999). “A simple water balance model for the simulation of stream flow over a large geographic domain.” J. Hydrol. Eng., 217(3–4), 314–355.
Athanasios, L., and Michael, C. Q. (1996). “Effect of climate change on hydrological regime of two climatically different watersheds.” J. Hydrol. Eng., 1(2), 77–87.
Benedikt, N., Lindsay, M., Daniel, V., Rolf, W., and Hans, P. L. (2007). “Impacts of environmental change on water resources in the Mt. Kenya region.” J. Hydrol. Eng., 343(3–4), 266–278.
Chau, K. W., Wu, C. L., and Li, Y. S. (2005). “Comparison of several flood forecasting models in Yangtze River.” J. Hydrol. Eng., 10(6), 485–491.
Compilation Commission of China’s National Assessment for Climate Change (CCCNACC). (2007). China’s national assessment for climate change, Science Press, Beijing, China (in Chinese).
Cosby, B. J. (1984). “A statistical exploration of the relationships of soil moisture characteristics to the physical properties of soils.” Water Resour. Res., 20(6), 682.
Fu, G. B., Michael, E. B., and Chen, S. L. (2007). “Impacts of climate change on regional hydrological regimes in the Spokane River Watershed.” J. Hydrol. Eng., 12(5), 452–461.
Gleick, P. H. (1987). “The development and testing of a water balance model for climate impact assessment: Modeling the Sacramento basin.” Water Resour. Res., 23(6), 1049–1061.
Guo, S. L., and Wang, G. Q. (1994). “Monthly water balance model for the Yellow River basin.” J. Yellow River, 17(12), 13–16 (in Chinese with English abstract).
Habets, F., et al. (1999). “The ISBA surface scheme in a macroscale hydrological model applied to the Hapex-Mobilhy area—Part I: Model and database.” J. Hydrol., 217, 75–89.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). (2008). Climate change and water, IPCC Technical Paper VI, B. C. Bates, et al. (eds.). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
Jin, J. L., Lu, G. H., and Wu, Z. Y. (2009). Estimating precipitation for poorly-gauged areas in western China, Vol. 333, IAHS Press, Wallingford, UK, 238–244.
Liang, X., Lettenmaier, D. P., and Wood, E. F. (1994). “A simple hydrological model of land surface water and energy fluxes for general circulation models.” J. Geophys., 99(D7), 14,415–14,428.
Liang, X., and Xie, Z. (2001). “A new surface runoff parameterization with subgrid-scale soil heterogeneity for land surface model.” Adv. Water Resour., 24(1), 173–193.
Lohmann, D., Raschke, E., and Nijssen, B. (1998). “Regional scale hydrology—I: Formulation of the VIC-2L model coupled to a routing model.” Hydrol. Sci. J., 43(1), 131–141.
Lorena, L., Leonardo, V., Enrique, R., and Goffredi, 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), 107–118.
Nash, J. E., and Sutcliffe, J. (1970). “River flow forecasting through conceptual models: Part 1—A discussion of principles.” J. Hydrol., 10, 282–290.
Rawls, W., and Yates, P. (1976). Calibration of selected infiltration equations for the Georgia Coastal Plain, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, 113, Washington, DC.
Roger, N., Francis, H. S., Walter, C., and Zhang, L. (2005). “Estimating the sensitivity of mean annual runoff to climate change using selected hydrological models.” Adv. Sci. Technol. Water Res., 29, 1419–1429.
Thodsen, H. (2007). “The influence of climate change in stream flow in Danish rivers.” J. Hydrol., 333(2–4), 226–238.
Wang, G. Q., Zhang, J. Y., and He, R. M. (2006). “Impacts of environmental change on runoff in Fenhe river basin of the middle Yellow River.” Adv. Water Sci., 17(6), 853–858 (in Chinese with English abstract).
Wang, G. Q., Zhang, J. Y., and He, R. M. (2009a). “Study on large-scale hydrological processes simulation of Yellow River Basin.” Water Res. Hydrol. Eng., 40(2), 5–8 (in Chinese with English abstract).
Wang, W. C., Chau, K. W., Cheng, C. T., and Qiu, L. (2009b). “A comparison of performance of several artificial intelligence methods for forecasting monthly discharge time series.” J. Hydrol. Eng., 374(3–4), 294–306.
Wu, C. L., Chau, K. W., and Li, Y. S. (2009). “Predicting monthly streamflow using data-driven models coupled with data-preprocessing techniques.” Water Resour. Res., 45, W08432.
Xie, Z. H., Su, F. G., and Liang, X. Z. (2003). “Applications of a surface runoff model with Horton and Dunne runoff for VIC.” Adv. Atmos. Sci., 20(2), 165–172.
Xu, J. H., Li, X. Y., Chen, J. J., Gao, Y. J., and Li, M. (2009). Impact of water conservancy projects on storm flood and sediment yield in the middle reaches of the Yellow River, Yellow River Press, Zhengzhou, China.
Xu, Y. L., Huang, X. Y., and Zhang, Y. (2005). “Statistical analyses of climate change scenarios over China in the 21st century.” Adv. Climate Change Res., 1(2), 80–83 (in Chinese with English abstract).
Ye, B. S., Ding, Y. J., and Kang, E. S. (1999). “Response of snowmelt and glacier runoff to climate warming-up in the last 40 years in Xinjiang autonomous region, China.” Sci. China Ser. D, 29(Z1), 40–46.
Zhang, J. Y., and Wang, G. Q. (2007). Impacts of climate change on hydrology and water resources, Science Press, Beijing, China (in Chinese with English abstract).
Zhang, J. Y., Wang, G. Q., He, R. M., and Liu, C. S. (2009). “Variation trends of runoffs in the Middle Yellow River basin and its response to climate change.” Adv. Water Sci., 20(2), 153–158 (in Chinese with English abstract).
Zhang, Y., Xu, Y. L., and Dong, W. J. (2006). “A future climate scenario of regional changes in extreme climate events over China using the PRECIS climate model.” Geophys. Res. Lett., 33(24), L24702.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 18 • Issue 11 • November 2013
Pages: 1393 - 1399
Copyright
© 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: May 23, 2011
Accepted: Jan 9, 2012
Published online: Jan 11, 2012
Discussion open until: Jun 11, 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.