Abstract
This paper investigates the spatiotemporal variability in hydrometeorological time-series to evaluate the current and future scenarios of water resources availability from upper Indus basin (UIB). Mann–Kendall and Sen’s slope estimator tests were used to analyze the variability in the temperature, precipitation, and streamflow time-series data at 27 meteorological stations and 34 hydrological stations for the period of 1963 to 2014. The time-series data of entire study period were divided into two equal subseries of 26 years each (1963–1988 and 1989–2014) to assess the overlapping aspect of climate change acceleration over UIB. The results showed a warming pattern at low altitude stations, while a cooling tendency was detected at high-altitude stations. An increase in streamflow was detected during winter and spring seasons at all hydrological stations, whereas the streamflow in summer and autumn seasons exhibited decreasing trends. The annual precipitation showed a significant decreasing trend at ten stations, while a significant increasing trend was observed at Kohat station during second subseries of the study period. The most significant winter drying trends were observed at Gupis, Chitral, Garidopatta, and Naran stations of magnitude of 47%, 13%, 25%, and 18%, respectively, during the second subseries. The annual runoff exhibited significant deceasing trends over Jhelum subbasin at Azad Pattan, Chinari, Domel Kohala, Muzaffarabad, and Palote, while within Indus basin at Chahan, Gurriala, Khairabad, Karora, and Kalam in the second time-series. It is believed that the results of this study will be helpful for the decision-makers to develop strategies for planning and development of future water resources projects.
Highlights
Tibetan Plateau comprises three major mountainous areas of Asia, that is, Hindukush, Karakoram, and Himalaya (HKH), known as the “third pole” or “roof of the world” because of the massive volumes of recurrent snow and glacial ice storage in its high-altitude basins [1, 2]. e upper Indus basin (UIB) encompasses a huge constituency of hilly areas, and water resources originating from this region are of decisive significance to the interests of Pakistan. e upper Indus river system is of high importance to sustainable water supply for large populations located in the lower reaches of Indus river in Pakistan
UIB is a region that is famous for conflicting signals of climate and contrasting hydrological regime [15]. e basic reason for this anomalous behavior is the difference between accumulation patterns of this region as reported by various researchers on the basis of geodetic mass balance and remote sensing data acquisition studies [12, 24]. e results of this study predicted that the climate change and acceleration over UIB may seriously affect streamflow in Indus river
Ere are primarily three sources of streamflow in UIB, i.e., glacier melt (Hunza, Shigar, and Shyok subbasins) followed by snowmelt (Astore and Gilgit subbasins) and precipitation. e hydrology of the Karakoram and Himalyan ranges is different as reported by various authors. e basic difference is between the accumulation patterns of these two regions, Karakoram mountain receives precipitation by the westerly disturbances, and Himalyan range is controlled by the summer monsoon [23]
Summary
Tibetan Plateau comprises three major mountainous areas of Asia, that is, Hindukush, Karakoram, and Himalaya (HKH), known as the “third pole” or “roof of the world” because of the massive volumes of recurrent snow and glacial ice storage in its high-altitude basins [1, 2]. e upper Indus basin (UIB) encompasses a huge constituency of hilly areas, and water resources originating from this region are of decisive significance to the interests of Pakistan. e upper Indus river system is of high importance to sustainable water supply for large populations located in the lower reaches of Indus river in Pakistan. E upper Indus basin (UIB) encompasses a huge constituency of hilly areas, and water resources originating from this region are of decisive significance to the interests of Pakistan. Large-scale warming of the earth surface over the last ten decades or even more is indicated by several researchers [6,7,8]. Did such high-scale warming affect the global circulation patterns and direct affects occur in local climatic settings with changes in distribution and characteristics of precipitation and temperature [9]. Changes vary in space and time domains as affected by local climatic and topographic settings [10,11,12,13]. ese spatiotemporal variations in the climatic variables have motivated this study in which we aim to assess possible acceleration of climate changes and related hydrological impacts over UIB
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