Assessing the response of runoff to climate change and human activities for a typical basin in the Northern Taihang Mountain, China

Abstract

Climate change and human activities are the two main factors on runoff change. Quantifying the contribution of climate change and human activities on runoff change is important for water resources planning and management. In this study, the variation trend and abrupt change point of hydro-meteorological factors during 1960–2012 were detected by using the Mann–Kendall test and Pettitt change-point statistics. Then the runoff was simulated by SWAT model. The contribution of climate change and human activities on runoff change was calculated based on the SWAT model and the elasticity coefficient method. The results showed that in contrast to the increasing trend for annual temperature, the significant decreasing trends were detected for annual runoff and precipitation, with an abrupt change point in 1982. The simulated results of SWAT had good consistency with observed ones, and the values of $$R^{2}$$ and $$E_{NS}$$ all exceeded 0.75. The two methods used for assessing the contribution of climate change and human activities on runoff reduction yielded consistent results. The contribution of climate change (precipitation reduction and temperature rise) was $${\sim }37.5\%$$ , while the contribution of human activities (the increase of economic forest and built-up land, hydrologic projects) was $${\sim }62.5\%$$ .