Precipitation Trends and Alteration in Wei River Basin: Implication for Water Resources Management in the Transitional Zone between Plain and Loess Plateau, China

Li Li,Yang Yang,Gong Gong,Zhang Zhang,Wei Wei

doi:10.3390/w11112407

Abstract

Precipitation plays a critical role in water resources management, and trend changes and alterations thereof are crucial to regional or basin water security, disaster prevention, and ecological restoration under a changing environment. In order to explore the implications of precipitation variation for water resources management, taking the Wei River Basin (a transitional zone between the Guanzhong Plain and Loess Plateau) as an example, this paper proposes an index system, namely the index of precipitation alteration (IPA), to evaluate changes in precipitation and investigate their potential influence on water resources management. The system includes 17 indicators gained from observed daily rainfall, involving some structural precipitation indicators describing the precipitation patterns and some functional precipitation indicators influencing utilization of watershed water resources. Non-parametric Mann-Kendall (MK) statistical test is employed to identify the IPA trend change, and range of variability approach is used to evaluate the variation of IPA. The analysis results in Wei River Basin show that IPA varies with different spatial and temporal distributions. Overall, although the annual total precipitation declined in the study area, the frequency of extreme events was increased during 1955–2012. In the face of severe climate change patterns, it is necessary to establish the precipitation index to evaluate the change of precipitation and to provide useful information for future precipitation assessments.

Highlights

Climate change has a significant influence on the ecosystem and human wellbeing [1], and is causing a universal redistribution of life and changing the spatiotemporal land use/land cover (LULC)on Earth [2] at present
Precipitation is a key parameter related to major climate impacts, and it is necessary to explore the spatiotemporal patterns of precipitation change, as the structural and functional precipitation indexes are leading LULC changes and are related to climate change impacts such as droughts and floods
Drought and extreme precipitation events have occurred frequently due to population growth and climate change

Summary

Introduction

Climate change has a significant influence on the ecosystem and human wellbeing [1], and is causing a universal redistribution of life and changing the spatiotemporal land use/land cover (LULC)on Earth [2] at present. Precipitation is a key parameter related to major climate impacts, and it is necessary to explore the spatiotemporal patterns of precipitation change, as the structural and functional precipitation indexes are leading LULC changes and are related to climate change impacts such as droughts and floods. These changes and impacts will further affect ecosystem function and the social development of human beings. A study on global-warming-induced precipitation variability by Karl and Knight [7] showed that the extreme and heavy events in the U.S have increased, and moderate events have presented a decreasing trend in recent years [8]. Zhao et al [10] proposed that a daily precipitation change was evident in northwest

Methods

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Discussion

Conclusion