EVALUATING THE WATER RESOURCE IMPACTS OF CLIMATIC WARMING IN COLD ALPINE REGIONS BY THE WATER BALANCE MODEL: MODELING THE URUMQI RIVER BASIN

Abstract

In view of the tendency of global climatic warming, the water balance model is employed to estimate the runoff changes in the Urumqi River Basin, Xinjiang Region, China, under ten climate change scenarios, which are combinations of temperature increases by 2K and 4K with precipitation change of 0, ±10% and ±20%, respectively, as the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide increases. The results suggest that runoff changes mainly depend on the precipitation change in the glacier-free or less glacierized basins in cold alpine regions. Effect of temperature on runoff becomes marked gradually with the increase in precipitation. Runoff from glacierized areas, however, is much more sensitive to the temperature change.