Response of streamflow to environmental changes: A Budyko-type analysis based on 144 river basins over China

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.02.011

Science of The Total Environment

Volume 664, 10 May 2019, Pages 824-833

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.02.011 Get rights and content

Highlights

•
Bias correction to precipitation and optimization to a_s and b_s are essential for aridity index application
•
Streamflow is more sensitive to climate change in water-limited region than that in equitant and energy-limited region
•
Streamflow is dominated by climate in energy-limited and equitant regions and by other factors in water-limited region

Abstract

Understanding response of streamflow to environmental changes is crucial for large-scale water resources management and ecosystem restoration. There is no consensus on how environmental change influence streamflow in different regions across climate gradient, as previous studies mainly focused on a single river basin or climate region. This study analyzed the variations of aridity index and its contributions to streamflow change based on Budyko's framework approach using bias-corrected precipitation measurement, parameters-optimized potential evapotranspiration and observed streamflow in 144 basins across China. The parameter n in the Budyko type equation exhibits significant spatial heterogeneity, with larger values in the water-limited region than in the energy-limited region, which suggests more pronounced impact of basin characteristic or vegetation change on hydrological cycle. The absolute value of sensitivity coefficient in the water-limited region (−2.56) was larger than both equitant (−2.13) and energy limited region (−1.57), indicating that the streamflow was more sensitive to aridity index change in the water-limited region than in the equitant and energy-limited regions. The dominant factor affecting streamflow under energy-limited and equitant conditions is aridity index (i.e. climate change), with median relative contribution rates of 79.9% and 55.5%, respectively. In contrast, non-climatic factors dominate the variation of streamflow in the water-limited region, the effect of climate change on streamflow has been offset by other factors. This study suggests that the water management practices, such as water diversion across river basins and ecological restorations, should fully consider the differences in hydrological responses to climatic conditions.

Graphical abstract

Introduction

Environmental changes, such as climate changes and the changes induced by human activity is unequivocal and particularly remarkable over the past three decades (NOAA, 2018; IPCC, 2013). The hydrological cycle has been accelerated (Donat et al., 2016; Piao et al., 2010; Ohmura and Wild, 2002; Zhang et al., 2018a) and exhibited large spatial and temporal heterogeneity due to the environmental change (Greve et al., 2014). In particularly, the widely spread concept that dry regions become drier and wet regions become wetter as climate change could be severed as a simplified summary of regional different response to the changing environment (Held and Soden, 2006). In addition, the global warming hiatus (Medhaug et al., 2017) has caused a wetting trend over the mid-to-high latitude regions of Eurasia and Greenland, but a drying trend in over North America, southern Europe and eastern China (Guan et al., 2017). Regional response differences to environmental change introduces great challenge to the hydrological cycle study and water resources management (Jaramillo and Destouni, 2015; Kang and Eltahir, 2018; Wang et al., 2019; Xing et al., 2018).

Aridity index (ϕ), defined as the ratio of annual potential evapotranspiration (PET) to precipitation (P), is a highly suitable way to aggregate complex climate gradients into a simple but hydrometeorological meaningful indicator (UNESCO, 1979). The aridity index has been widely used for dividing climatic zones (Maliva and Missimer, 2012; McVicar et al., 2012) and assessing the impact of climate change on hydrological cycle (Roderick et al., 2015; Yang et al., 2018; Zhang et al., 2016). Studies showed that the aridity index increased by human-induced climate change (Kang and Eltahir, 2018; Cook et al., 2014), and significantly reduced water supply in different climate regions (Roderick et al., 2015; Liu et al., 2013; Liang, 2018). At the global scale, some researchers argue that the aridity index over land surface would increase significantly leading to water scarcity, particularly in the tropics, subtropics, and midlatitudes regions (Scheff and Frierson, 2015). While some other researchers argue that although the aridity index would be increased in most global basins, the streamflow (Q), as one of the key components in water cycle, could also be increased in the future due to its varied levels of sensitivities to PET and precipitation (Yang et al., 2018; Yang et al., 2019), particularly in the water-limited regions (Berghuijs et al., 2017). At the regional scales, while the aridity index would be increased in equitant and water-limited regions, it demonstrated remarkablely different contributions to streamflow, with the values of 68.8% and 31.5%, respectively (Liu et al., 2013). Investigating the responses of streamflow to aridity index in different climatic regions is vital for understanding the effects of climate change on water resources in river basins and for implementing adaptation strategies of climate change for regional water resources management. As previous studies primarily focus on a single river basin or climate region, there is no consensus on how climate influence streamflow in different climatic regions. Comprehensively assessing the responses of streamflow to aridity index would be of great importance for a better understanding of the differences in regional hydrologic responses on climate change and therefore for improving region-specific adaptive strategy-making in response to climate change. However, to the best of our knowledge, such assessment is still lacking in the current literature.

China covers a wide temperature gradient decreasing from south to north, and a large precipitation gradient decreasing from southeast to northwest, which provides an ideal case for such assessment. In this study, we selected 144 basins in China and classified them into three climatic regions to examine the impacts of aridity index on streamflow under the changing environment. The specific objectives of this study are to: (1) investigate the spatial distribution and significance of parameter n in Budyko type equation in three climatic regions, (2) evaluate the sensitivity of streamflow to aridity index in different climate regions, and (3) assess the influence of aridity index on streamflow under the changing environment.

Section snippets

Study area

We selected 144 basins to investigate the impact of climate change on hydrological responses. These basins cover a broad geographic and climatic conditions (Fig. 1). The area of basins spans from 385 to 137,704 km². The mean annual air temperature ranges from −5 to 22 °C. The mean annual precipitation ranges from 343 to 2628 mm. The mean annual potential evapotranspiration (PET) spans from 652 to 1645 mm. The runoff depth ranges from 7.5 to 2410 mm. The aridity index (ϕ) spans from 0.53 to

Estimating potential evapotranspiration

The Potential evapotranspiration (PET) is estimated by the Penman (1948) as follows: $PET = \frac{Δ}{Δ + γ} (R_{n} - G) + \frac{γ}{Δ + γ} [0.26 (1 + 0.52 U_{2})] (e_{s} - e_{a})$ where PET is the potential evapotranspiration (mm d⁻¹), ∆ is the slope of saturated vapor pressure in relation to air temperature (kPa·°C⁻¹); γ is the psychrometric constant (kPa·°C⁻¹); R_n is the net radiation (MJ m⁻² d⁻¹), and G is the soil heat flux density (MJ m⁻² d⁻¹); U₂ is the wind speed at the 2 m height (m s⁻¹); e_s and e_a are the saturation and actual vapor pressure

Parameter n in the Budyko framework under different climatic regions

Fig. 4 shows the relationship of aridity index (ϕ) and evapotranspiration index (ET_a/P) in the three climatic regions. The results indicate that the small values of ϕ (ϕ → 0) are found in humid basins, where the water is sufficient, and the energy supply is the key limiting factor for evapotranspiration; the large values of ϕ (ϕ → 0) are associated with arid regions where the precipitation is scarce, and the water supply is the limiting factor for evapotranspiration. Our findings are generally

Comparison with previous work

Previous studies have reported the responses of hydrological cycle to climate change in different climatic regions (Table 5). For example, in the water-limited northwest China, Dong et al. (2014) found that the streamflow reduction caused by climate change (precipitation and PET) accounting for 14.3%, which suggested human activities or other factors were the major driver for streamflow variations. On the contrary, Ma et al. (2008) found that climate variability accounted for over 64% of the

Conclusions

Hydrological process and its basic components are increasingly affected by climate change and anthropogenic interference, and finally change the spatial and temporal distribution of water resources. Understanding different responses of hydrological cycle to climate change in different environmental conditions is essential for water resources management. In this paper, the response of streamflow to aridity index change were investigated in energy-limited (EL), equitant (EQ) and water-limited

Acknowledgements

This study was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41701019), the Startup Foundation for Introducing Talent of Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology (No. 2017r069), the Key Laboratory of Water Cycle and Related Land Surface Processes, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. WL2017004). We also give sincerely thanks to Lifang Liu and Jiaxin Xie for providing the streamflow data.

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Response of streamflow to environmental changes: A Budyko-type analysis based on 144 river basins over China

Highlights

Abstract

Graphical abstract

Introduction

Section snippets

Study area

Estimating potential evapotranspiration

Parameter n in the Budyko framework under different climatic regions

Comparison with previous work

Conclusions

Acknowledgements

For. Ecol. Manag.

J. Hydrol.

Sci. Total Environ.

Water

J. Hydrol.

J. Hydrol.

Glob. Planet. Chang.

J. Hydrol.

J. Hydrol.

Sci. Total Environ.

Forests

Crop Evapotranspiration - Guidelines for Computing Crop Water Requirements - FAO Irrigation and Drainage Paper

A global assessment of runoff sensitivity to changes in precipitation, potential evaporation, and other factors

Water Resour. Res.

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Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss.

Climate and Life

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Theor. Appl. Climatol.

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Local flow regulation and irrigation raise global human water consumption and footprint

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North China Plain threatened by deadly heatwaves due to climate change and irrigation

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Variation of aridity index and the role of climate variables in the Southwest China

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