Estimation of the effects of climate change and human activities on runoff in different time scales in the Beichuan River Basin, China

Abstract

Assessing the impacts of climate change and human activities on runoff is important for planning and managing water resources and for maintaining the integrity of the ecosystem, as well as the normal operation of modern society. In this study, the distribution of precipitation in the Beichuan River basin from 1961 to 2013 is uneven, and we analyzed the impacts of climate change and human activity on the annual and seasonal runoff change during this period. The results showed that runoff was more sensitive to precipitation than the other meteorological factors during the study period, and a 10% increase in precipitation could increase runoff by 17.5%. The annual runoff showed a downward trend during the past 53 years, with an abrupt change point in 1972. We concluded that human activities were mainly responsible for the runoff reduction, and climate change accounted for approximately 30% of the reduction. For the change in seasonal runoff, the dry season runoff had no significant trend, but there was a downward trend in the wet season runoff, with an abrupt change point in 1998. We concluded that human activities were the dominant cause of the reduction in the wet season runoff (88.27%), and climate change accounted for 11.73% of the reduction.