Extreme historical droughts and floods in the Hanjiang River Basin, China, since 1426

Abstract

Abstract. The major droughts and floods in the Hanjiang River Basin, central China, have a significant impact on flood prevention and control in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and water resources management in the areas of the South–North Water Diversion Middle Line Project. However, there is a lack of understanding of the multi-decadal to centennial-scale patterns of extreme droughts and floods in the area. Applying the yearly drought and flood records from historical documents and precipitation data in the period of instrumental measurements, this study constructs a time series of extreme droughts and floods in the Hanjiang River Basin from 1426–2017 and analyzes the temporal and spatial characteristics of the extreme drought and flood event variations. The results show that there were a total of 45 extreme droughts and 52 extreme floods in the basin over the past 592 years. Extreme droughts and floods were highly variable on a multi-decadal to centennial scale, and the frequencies were higher in the first and last 100 years or so of the study period and lower in between. Spatially, the frequencies of extreme droughts and floods were generally higher in the middle and lower reaches than in the upper reaches. It was also found that there is a good correlation of drought and flood frequencies between the upper Hanjiang River Basin and North China. These results are informative for the study of mechanisms and predictability of multi-decadal to centennial-scale variability of extreme hydroclimatic events in the river basin.