Abstract
Global climate change and rapid industrial development have led to changes in streamflow worldwide, and determining the relative contributions from climate variability and human activity is important for water management. However, studies using attribution analysis to investigate the streamflow in Taiwan are scarce. In this study, statistical methods are used to evaluate the changes in streamflow in order to assess the variation in the hydrological environment of Taiwan. Four river basins in Southern Taiwan were selected as the study area. The impact of climate variability and human activities on the changes in the streamflow from 1980 to 2017 was quantified via the hydrological sensitivity-based method and the decomposition method, which is based on the Budyko hypothesis. The results from these two methods were consistent and demonstrated that the increase in the streamflow of the four river basins was mainly attributable to climate variability. Streamflow change was more responsive to precipitation because of the relatively larger value of the sensitivity coefficients. This study provides a basic insight into the hydrological dynamics of river basins in Southern Taiwan and may serve as a reference for related research in the future.
Highlights
Climate change and human activities are the main factors that are currently influencing the global hydrological cycle, the frequency and severity of extreme natural events, and the planning of water resources [1]
The results demonstrated that the decline in streamflow that is directly attributable to human activity is more pronounced during the irrigation season
Different objectives were under investigation in these studies and various spatial and temporal scales were used, which led to different results. These discrepancies, together with the inconsistent results in studies conducted in different areas, mean that it is increasingly important to determine the contributions of climate change and human activities to changes in streamflow
Summary
Climate change and human activities are the main factors that are currently influencing the global hydrological cycle, the frequency and severity of extreme natural events, and the planning of water resources [1]. Climate change affects the spatial and temporal patterns of precipitation and evaporation and human activity modifies the landscape, altering the hydrological processes [3,4] These impacts are closely related to the availability of water worldwide. The results showed that an increasing settlement area and a decreasing forested area are the main changes observed in land use and that these factors have a significant impact on streamflow. These studies used data concerning the changes in streamflow to highlight problems occurring within different hydrological systems and provide guidance for water resource management. These discrepancies, together with the inconsistent results in studies conducted in different areas, mean that it is increasingly important to determine the contributions of climate change and human activities to changes in streamflow
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