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Modeling Land-Use and Land-Cover Change and Hydrological Responses under Consistent Climate Change Scenarios in the Heihe River Basin, China

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Abstract

This study investigated land-use and land-cover change (LUCC) and hydrological responses under consistent climate change scenarios (A1B and B1) in the Heihe River Basin (HRB), a typical arid inland river basin in northwest China. LUCC was first projected using the Dynamic Conversion of Land-Use and its Effects (Dyna-CLUE) model. Two cases (Case 1 and Case 2) were then established to quantify the hydrological responses to single climate change and the combined responses to climate change and LUCC with the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). The results of LUCC modeling under the A1B and B1 scenarios present distinct regional characteristics and also indicate that the projected future land-use patterns are not appreciably different than the actual map for the year 2000. In Case 1, which only considers the impacts of single climate change, overall, the streamflow at the outlet of the upper HRB is projected to decline, whereas at the outlet of the middle HRB to increase, under both climate change scenarios. Meanwhile, the frequency of occurrence of hydrological extremes is expect to increase under both scenarios. In Case 2, which considers the combined impacts of climate change and LUCC, the changes in streamflow and frequency of hydrological extremes are found to be remarkably consistent with those in Case 1. The results imply that climate change rather than LUCC are primarily responsible for the hydrological variations. The role of LUCC varies with regions in the context of climate change dominated hydrological responses.

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Acknowledgments

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 91125006 and 91125005). The authors thank the Scientific Data Center in Cold and Arid Regions and the China Meteorological Data Sharing Service System for providing the data. The authors also would like to extend their gratitude to the anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions to this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 730000, Lanzhou, China

    Ling Zhang, Zhuotong Nan, Wenjun Yu & Yingchun Ge

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Ling Zhang

  3. School of Geography Science, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, 210023, China

    Zhuotong Nan

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  1. Ling Zhang
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Correspondence to Zhuotong Nan.

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Zhang, L., Nan, Z., Yu, W. et al. Modeling Land-Use and Land-Cover Change and Hydrological Responses under Consistent Climate Change Scenarios in the Heihe River Basin, China. Water Resour Manage 29, 4701–4717 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-015-1085-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-015-1085-9

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