Hydrological Changes of the Ili River in Kazakhstan and the Possible Causes
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 20, Issue 11
Abstract
Hydrological changes of the Ili River were analyzed concerning the changes of annual runoff and its distribution features within a year measured by coefficient of variation and concentration degree. Abrupt changes were detected by the heuristic segmentation method. Possible causes of the hydrological changes were investigated considering climate changes and human activities (especially the reservoir operation and irrigation extension). The Mann-Kendall method was applied to estimate whether the temperature and precipitation were changed. The increased temperature and the decreased precipitation in the flood season may decrease the runoff. At the middle reaches, the impact of the reservoir is significant and may be the main factor leading to the abrupt decreases in annual runoff and its intra-annual variability and concentration. The increased water surface area of the reservoir aggravates the evaporation and leads to annual runoff reduction. The reservoir regulates runoff by storing water in the flood season and releasing water in the dry season.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
This research was jointly supported financially by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41401010), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2013M531270), the Ministry of Water Resources’ Special Funds for Scientific Research on Public Causes, People’s Republic of China (No. 201001052), the Major Program of National Social Science Foundation of China (No. 11&ZD168), Jiangsu Planned Projects for Postdoctoral Research Funds (No. 1302029 C), and Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University (No. IRT13062).
References
Aladin, N. V., and Plotnikov, I. S. (1993). “Large saline lakes of former USSR: A summary review.” Hydrobiologia, 267(1), 1–12.
Chen, G. C., and Xie, P. (2008). “Change point analysis of hydrologic time series based on heuristic segmentation method.” Acta Sci. Natur. Univ. Sunyatseni, 47(5), 122–125 (in Chinese).
Deng, M. J., Wang, Z. J., and Wang, J. Y. (2011). “Analysis of Balkhash Lake ecological water level evolvement and its regulation strategy.” J. Hydraul. Eng., 42(4), 403–413 (in Chinese).
Dostay, Z., Alimkulov, S., Tursunova, A., and Myrzakhmetov, A. (2012). “Modern hydrological status of the estuary of Ili River.” Appl. Water Sci., 2(3), 227–233.
Fu, Y. X., and Yang, S. (2009). “Commentary on the development of Kazakhstan Ili-Balkhash basin during the soviet period.” J. Lanzhou Univ., 37(4), 16–24 (in Chinese).
Fukuda, K., Eugene Stanley, H., and Nunes Amaral, L. A. (2004). “Heuristic segmentation of a nonstationary time series.” Phys. Rev. E, 69(2), 021108.
Guo, L. D., and Xia, Z. Q. (2014). “Temperature and precipitation long-term trends and variations in the Ili-Balkhash basin.” Theor. Appl. Climatol., 115(1–2), 219–229.
Guo, L. D., Xia, Z. Q., and Wang, Z. J. (2011). “Comparisons of hydrological variations and environmental effects between Aral Sea and Lake Balkhash.” Adv. Water Sci., 22(6), 764–770 (in Chinese).
Huang, F., Xia, Z. Q., Li, F., Guo, L. D., and Yang, F. C. (2012). “Hydrological changes of the Irtysh River and the possible causes.” Water Resour. Manage., 26(11), 3195–3208.
Kawabata, Y., Tsukatani, T., and Katayama, Y. (1999). “A demineralization mechanism for Lake Balkhash.” Int. J. Salt Lake Res., 8(2), 99–112.
Kezer, K., and Matsuyama, H. (2006). “Decrease of river runoff in the Lake Balkhash basin in central Asia.” Hydrol. Process., 20(6), 1407–1423.
Kipshakbaev, N. K., and Abdrasilov, S. A. (1994). “Effect of economic activity on the hydrologic regime and dynamics of the Ili delta.” Hydrotech. Constr., 28(8), 416–420.
Kudrin, R. D. (1976). “Secular water level fluctuations in the large natural bodies of water of Kazakhstan and Soviet Central Asia.” Soviet Hydrol., 15(3), 191–194 (in Russian).
Kundzewicz, Z. W., and Kowalczak, P. (2009). “The potential for water conflict is on the increase.” Nature, 459(7243), 31.
Li, L., Hao, Z., Wang, J., Wang, Z., and Yu, Z. (2008). “Impact of future climate change on runoff in the head region of the Yellow River.” J. Hydrol. Eng., 347–354.
Long, A. H., Deng, M. J., Xie, L., Wang, J. Y., and Li, X. Q. (2011). “A study of the water balance of Lake Balkhash.” J. Glaciol. Geocryol., 33(6), 1341–1352 (in Chinese).
Matsuyama, H., and Kezer, K. (2009). “Long-term variation of precipitation around Lake Balkhash in central Asia from the end of the 19th century.” SOLA, 5, 73–76.
Mix, K., Lopes, V., and Rast, W. (2012). “Environmental drivers of streamflow change in the upper Rio Grande.” Water Resour. Manage., 26(1), 253–272.
Petr, T. (1992). “Lake Balkhash, Kazakhstan.” Int. J. Salt Lake Res., 1(1), 21–46.
Poff, N. L., et al. (1997). “The natural flow regime: A paradigm for river conservation and restoration.” BioScience, 47(11), 769–784.
Propastin, P. A. (2008). “Simple model for monitoring Balkhash Lake water levels and Ili River discharges: Application of remote sensing.” Lakes Reservoirs Res. Manage., 13(1), 77–81.
Propastin, P. A. (2012). “Problems of water resources management in the drainage basin of Lake Balkhash with respect to political development.” Climate change and the sustainable use of water resources, W. Leal Filho, ed., Springer, Berlin, 449–461.
Propastin, P. A. (2013). “Assessment of climate and human induced disaster risk over shared water resources in the Balkhash Lake drainage basin.” Climate change and disaster risk management, W. Leal Filho, ed., Springer, Berlin, 41–54.
Propastin, P. A., Kappas, M., and Muratova, N. R. (2006). “Change detection of the Ili delta in the seven-stream land using multi-temporal remote sensing data.” Proc., Global Change Issues in Developing and Emerging Countries: Proc., 2nd Göttingen GIS and Remote Sensing Days, Universitätsverlag Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany, 239–249.
Shnitnikov, A. V. (1973). “Water balance variability of Lakes Aral, Balkhash, Issyk-kul and Chany.” Proc., Hydrology of Lakes, Proc., Int. Symp., Adlard & Son Bartholomew Press, London, 130–140.
Skotselyas, I. I. (1987). “Losses of the Ili River discharge below the Kapchagay gorge.” Kazakhstan NIGMI, 97, 24–34 (in Russian).
Starodubtsev, V., and Truskavetskiy, S. (2011). “Desertification processes in the Ili River delta under anthropogenic pressure.” Water Resour., 38(2), 253–256.
Sun, H. L., et al. (2010). “Variation and abrupt change of climate in Ili River basin, Xinjiang.” J. Geogr. Sci., 20(5), 652–666.
Tarasov, M. N. (1961). Hydrochemistry of the Lake Balkhash, Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Leningrad, 458–471.
Tlenbekov, O. K., and Piven, E. N. (1993). “Anthropogenic change in runoff of the rivers in the Balkhash Lake basin.” Geographic problems of the Ili-Balkhash region, A. A. Tursunov, ed., Gylym, Almaty, Kazakhstan, 54–62 (in Russian).
Wang, Y. K., Xia, Z. Q., and Wang, D. (2012). “A transitional region concept for assessing the effects of reservoirs on river habitats: A case of Yangtze River, China.” Ecohydrology, 5(1), 28–35.
Xie, L., Long, A. H., Deng, M. J., Li, X. Q., and Wang, J. Y. (2011). “Study on ecological water consumption in delta of the lower reaches of Ili River.” J. Geogr. Sci., 33(6), 1330–1340 (in Chinese).
Yue, S., Pilon, P., and Cavadias, G. (2002). “Power of the Mann-Kendall and Spearman’s rho tests for detecting monotonic trends in hydrological series.” J. Hydrol., 259(1–4), 254–271.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 20 • Issue 11 • November 2015
Copyright
© 2015 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jul 14, 2013
Accepted: Feb 19, 2015
Published online: Mar 31, 2015
Discussion open until: Aug 31, 2015
Published in print: Nov 1, 2015
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.