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Quantitatively evaluating the effects of climate factors on runoff change for Aksu River in northwestern China

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Abstract

Much attention has recently been focused on the effects that precipitation and potential evapotranspiration (PET) have had on runoff change; however, the influence of temperature on runoff needs to be further studied. We attempted to employ the improved elasticity method to evaluate the effects of climate factors (CF, especially temperature) on runoff change for Aksu River in the arid region of northwest China. Data from Aksu River in the arid region of northwest China were analyzed to investigate changes in annual runoff and CF during the period of 1960–2010. The key findings of this study indicated that the annual runoff had a significant (P < 0.01) increasing trend with a rate of 3.78 × 108 m3/decade, and the temperature and precipitation also exhibited significant rising trends, at a rate of 0.28 °C/decade (P < 0.01) and 15.11 mm/decade (P < 0.05), respectively, while PET showed a decreasing trend (22.66 mm/decade, P < 0.01). Step change point in runoff occurred in the year 1993. Thus, we employed the mean runoff and climate factors during the period 1960–1993 as the benchmark value to measure the change. In 1994–2010, mean runoff increased by 22 %. Results also revealed that temperature rising was the most important factor that increased runoff with contribution of 45 %, while precipitation and PET were responsible for 22 and 27 % of the runoff change, respectively, indicating that the runoff of increasing percentage only accounted for 6 % owing to human activities and other factors, and showed that climate variability was the main reason for the runoff change in Aksu River.

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Acknowledgments

The research is supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program: 2010CB951003), Startup Fund Scientific Research Project of Qufu Normal University (BSQD20130102), National Natural Science Foundation of China (41171165, 41361093), Beijing Municipal Colleges and Universities High-level Talent Introduction and Training Program (IDHT20130322), and Funding Project for Academic Human Resources Development in Beijing Union University (BPHR2012E01). We are grateful to Dr. Hartmut Graßl and anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on improving the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Geography and Tourism, Qufu Normal University, Rizhao, 276826, China

    Baofu Li

  2. State Key Laboratory of Desert and Oasis Ecology, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi, 830011, China

    Baofu Li & Yaning Chen

  3. College of Applied Arts and Science, Beijing Union University, Beijing, 100083, China

    Heigang Xiong

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  1. Baofu Li
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Correspondence to Baofu Li.

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Li, B., Chen, Y. & Xiong, H. Quantitatively evaluating the effects of climate factors on runoff change for Aksu River in northwestern China. Theor Appl Climatol 123, 97–105 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-014-1341-6

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