Streamflow responses to climate change and LUCC in a semi-arid watershed of Chinese Loess Plateau

Abstract

Climate change and Land Use/Cover Change (LUCC) have been identified as two primary factors affecting watershed hydrological regime. This study analyzed the trends of streamflow, precipitation, air temperature and potential evapotranspiration (PET) from 1962 to 2008 in the Jihe watershed in northwestern Loess Plateau of China using the Mann-Kendall test. The streamflow responses to climate change and LUCC were quantified independently by the elasticity method. The results show that the streamflow presented a dramatic decline with a turning point occurred in 1971, while the precipitation and PET did not change significantly. The results also show that the temperature rose markedly especially since 1990s with an approximate increase of 1.74°C over the entire research period (1962–2008). Using land use transition matrix, we found that slope cropland was significantly converted to terrace between 1970s and 1990s and that forest cover increased relatively significantly because of the Grain for Green Project after 2000. The streamflow reduction was predominantly caused by LUCC and its contribution reached up to 90.2%, while the contribution of climate change to streamflow decline was only 9.8%. Although the analytical results between the elasticity method and linear regression model were not satisfactorily consistent, they both indicated that LUCC (human activity) was the major factor causing streamflow decline in the Jihe watershed from 1962 to 2008.