Abstract
Abstract Background The impacts of climate change on streamflow in the Wujiang River watershed of Guizhou Province, Southwest China, were investigated by using a monthly distributed hydrological model and the two–parameter climate elasticity of streamflow approach. Results Results showed two different approaches obtained almost identical results in term of precipitation elasticity of streamflow, which is about 1.42 across different emission scenarios. Precipitation is the primary factor controlling runoff generation. However, the effects of temperature on the streamflow cannot be neglected with evidences of opposite signs of future precipitation and streamflow; the slight decline of streamflow is associated with an increase of precipitation and a higher temperature. Conclusion While the magnitudes of annual mean streamflow responses are minor, there would be a seasonal shift: drier spring and wetter summer would potentially result in the increasing frequency of spring drought events and summer flooding, and would produce serious challenge for water resources planning and management for Southwest China.
Highlights
The impacts of climate change on streamflow in the Wujiang River watershed of Guizhou Province, Southwest China, were investigated by using a monthly distributed hydrological model and the two–parameter climate elasticity of streamflow approach
Based on the means of Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) Model combining with Providing Regional Climate for Impact Studies (PRECIS) Model, hydrological variation in Haihe river basin due to climate change has been investigated by Yuan et al (2009), the results show that in spite of the increase of rainfall the mean annual runoffs for different future climate scenarios are tend to decrease which implies more serious water shortage will occur
Tang and Liu (2007) examined the relationship between surface runoff, precipitation and present land use based on GIS method to simulate surface runoff in the Wujiang River watershed. This primary objective of this study is to investigate the hydrological processes as a result of climate change for the Wujiang River watershed, which has not been reported in the literature, by using a distributed monthly hydrological model, the two-parameter climate elasticity of streamflow index resulting from observational historical data, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) GCMs model outputs
Summary
The impacts of climate change on streamflow in the Wujiang River watershed of Guizhou Province, Southwest China, were investigated by using a monthly distributed hydrological model and the two–parameter climate elasticity of streamflow approach. Guizhou Province, with an area of over 176,000 square kilometres (about 67,958 square miles) with a total population of more than 35,245,000 is located in the southwest China. The Guizhou Province is characterized by an extremely fragile environment resulting from serious ecosystem destruction, termed “karst rocky desertification” (Song et al, 1983; Yang, 1988; Wang et al, 2004a, b; Yang et al, 2009). Karst environment problems in China have been paid specific attentions by the governments because of broad expansion of karst area, dense population, and rich natural resources in this region (Yuan, 1997)
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