Effects of Climate Variations and Human Activities on Runoff in the Zoige Alpine Wetland in the Eastern Edge of the Tibetan Plateau
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 19, Issue 5
Abstract
The Zoige alpine wetland on the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau is an important headwater area for the Yellow River Basin. The White and Black Rivers are two major tributaries in the Zoige Basin. However, the alpine wetland has experienced a rapid degradation due to human and other recent environmental changes in the region. The effects of climate variations and human activities on runoff in this region are still unclear. In this study, those changes in runoff were quantified and categorized using the hydrologic sensitivity analysis method and a monthly water balance model. The temperature index-based snow melting submodel was integrated into a monthly water balance model to account for the considerable snow meltwater from the wetland in the summer season. The nonparametric Mann-Kendall test was used to analyze the annual and seasonal climatic trends in the Zoige Basin. Results suggest that during the past 55 years (1957–2011), annual precipitation was significantly decreasing at a rate of while the air temperature and potential evapotranspiration (PET) have increasing trends at the rates of and , respectively. Using three change-point detection methods, one change point was detected at 1989 in the annual streamflow series (1960–2011) and was adopted to divide the data set into two study periods—the baseline period (1960–1989) and the human-induced period (1990–2011). The mean annual runoff depth from the White (Black) River in the baseline period was 448.9 mm (151.5 mm), while the mean of the human-induced period decreased by 28% (35%). It was determined that decreases in runoff between the two periods can be attributed to 55% (64%) from climate variations and 45% (36%) from human activities in the White River (Black River). Thus, climatic impact exerted more important influence on runoff decline in the Zoige wetland basin as compared to human activities. This study enhances our understanding of the changes caused by climate variations and runoff (and their contributing factors) in the alpine wetland.
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Acknowledgments
The work was jointly fund by the Sichuan University, China (#SKLH-OF-1004); the National Basic Research Program of China (#2010CB951101); the Natural Science Foundation of China (#51079039); and the Scientific Research Innovation Program for Graduate Students of Jiangsu Province, China (#CX10B_210Z). The Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI) of Japan and the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) (http://www.gdem.aster.ersdac.or.jp/) provided ASTER GDEM 30-m DEM (version 2). The 1:250,000 basic geographic data (2005) and monthly runoff series were provided by the Yellow River Conservancy Commission (YRCC), China. Climate data was collected from the Climate Data Center, China Meteorological Administration (CDC-CMA, http://cdc.cma.gov.cn). The authors would like to thank Jun Wang for collecting a part of streamflow data.
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Published In
Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 19 • Issue 5 • May 2014
Pages: 1026 - 1035
Copyright
© 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jan 24, 2013
Accepted: Jun 12, 2013
Published online: Jun 15, 2013
Discussion open until: Nov 15, 2013
Published in print: May 1, 2014
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