Abstract
Runoff reduction in most river basins in China has become a hotpot in recent years. The Gushanchuan river, a primary tributary of the middle Yellow river, Northern China, showed a significant downward trend in the last century. Little is known regarding the relative contributions of changing environment to the observed hydrological trends and response on the runoff generation process in its watershed. On the basis of observed hydrological and meteorological data from 1965–2010, the Mann-Kendall trend test and climate elasticity method were used to distinguish the effects of climate change and human activities on runoff in the Gushanchuan basin. The results indicate that the runoff in the Gushanchuan Basin has experienced significant declines as large as 77% from 1965 to 2010, and a mutation point occurred around 1997; the contribution rate of climate change to runoff change is 12.9–15.1%, and the contribution rate of human activities to runoff change is 84.9–87.1%. Then we divided long-term data sequence into two stages around the mutation point, and analyzed runoff generation mechanisms based on land use and cover changes (LUCC). We found that the floods in the Gushanchuan Basin were still dominated by Excess-infiltration runoff, but the proportion in 1965–1997 and 1998–2010 decreased gradually (68.46% and 45.83% in turn). The proportion of Excess-storage runoff and Mixed runoff has increased, which means that the runoff is made up of more runoff components. The variation law of the LUCC indicates that the forest area increased by 49.61%, the confluence time increased by 50.42%, and the water storage capacity of the watershed increased by 30.35%.
Highlights
The world’s population is increasing rapidly so that the scale of the economy is expanding, and humans are over-interfering with the natural ecosystems
The variation law of the land use and cover changes (LUCC) indicates that the forest area increased by 49.61%, the confluence time increased by 50.42%, and the water storage capacity of the watershed increased by 30.35%
This paper aims to identify the runoff process, and gains insight into the runoff generation mechanism variation to the response of LUCC, based on the quantitative analysis of the impacts of climate change and human activities on runoff in the Gushanchuan Basin
Summary
The world’s population is increasing rapidly so that the scale of the economy is expanding, and humans are over-interfering with the natural ecosystems. It has resulted in a series of ecological and environmental problems in the Loess Plateau located in the arid and semi-arid regions of the north in China. Water shortage and soil erosion have become the main sources that restrict the economic development in the Loess Plateau. It is known as “Frequent drought and hardship rank first among the world”, and 1/5 of the poverty counties in China are distributed in the Loess Plateau [3]. Vegetation is an important part of soil and water conservation, and it is the core of the ecological environment construction of the Loess
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