Abstract
Evapotranspiration is the highest outgoing flux in the hydrological cycle in Xinjiang, Northwest China. Quantifying the temporal and spatial patterns of future evapotranspiration is vital to appropriately manage water resources in water shortage drylands. In this study, the Common Land Model (CoLM) was used to estimate the regional evapotranspiration during the period 2021–2050, and its projected changes in response to climate change under two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) scenarios (i.e., RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) were analyzed using the Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) technique. The results indicated that the mean regional evapotranspiration was comparable under the two scenarios during 2021–2050, with a value of 127 (±11.9) mm/year under the RCP4.5 scenario, and 124 (±11.1) mm/year under the RCP8.5 scenario, respectively. Compared to the historical period of 1996–2005, the annual mean evapotranspiration during 2041–2050 will marginally decrease by 0.3 mm under the RCP4.5 scenario and by 0.4 mm under the RCP8.5 scenario, respectively. Empirical Orthogonal Function (EOF) analyses show that the evapotranspiration in relative high altitudes of Xinjiang present strong variations. The SVD analyses suggest that the changes in evapotranspiration are more closely linked to local precipitation variations than to temperature. The results would provide reliable suggestions to understand future changed in evapotranspiration and improve the regional strategy for water resource management in Xinjiang.
Highlights
Located deep inside the Eurasian continent, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China is characterized by extremely low precipitation and high temperatures [1]
The proportion of glacial melt water has enhanced, which is associated with the increase of runoff from 41.5% to 46.5% over the past 50 years [39,40], which will exert impacts on hydrology and water resources
Our results indicated that predicted evapotranspiration under the two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) showed decreasing trends in the Taklimakan and Gurbantunggut deserts, which were similar to the corresponding precipitation
Summary
Located deep inside the Eurasian continent, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China is characterized by extremely low precipitation and high temperatures [1]. Water resources are a critical limiting factor for economic and social sustainable development in Xinjiang [2,3]. Under the impact of global warming, the water cycle has intensified, and over the past 50 years the proportion of glacial meltwater runoff has increased significantly [4]. As an important component of the hydrological cycle, evapotranspiration is the highest outgoing water flux or a major pathway of water loss in the water budget [7], and is a primary factor in determining water availability in Xinjiang [8,9]. Great efforts have been devoted to investigate the evapotranspiration change in Xinjiang in the past 60 years [10,11,12], how the evapotranspiration will change in the future has not yet been well explored
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