A model for continental-scale water erosion and sediment transport and its application to the Yellow River Basin

Abstract

<p>A large-scale water erosion and sediment transport model is introduced and applied to predict continental-scale hydrological transport processes at the Yellow River Basin in China. Our model couples the Atmospheric and Hydrological Modelling System (AHMS) with the CASCade 2 Dimensional SEDiment (CASC2D-SED), by considering a scale-adaptive water erosion parameterization and eight possible flow directions of the channel routing model. Here, the AHMS-SED is applied to simulate the water erosion processes in the Yellow River Basin over 10 years with a spatial resolution of 20 km. The simulated daily sediment fluxes from four major hydrological stations along the Yellow River (namely, Tangnaihe, Lanzhou, Toudaoguai and Huayuankou) are compared with corresponding observations. There is a quantitative agreement between these observations and modelling results at all stations. Our results demonstrate the good performance of the new scale-adaptive parameterization and the integrated AHMS-SED, paving the way for the studies of water erosion and sediment transport at large scales. We also show how of our numerical simulations can be used to predict the evolution of sediment transport in the Yellow River Basin under consideration of specific climate change scenarios.</p>

Investigating Tourists’ Willingness to Walk (WTW) to Attractions within Scenic Areas: A Case Study of Tongli Ancient Town, China

“…Ancient towns in the south of the Yangtze River, as a typical historical and cultural heritage unique to China, have been appealing to both domestic and international tourists thanks to their unique culture, customs, and landscape. However, during their development, features such as special hydrology, geography, and narrow streets and lanes there have led to high concentrations of tourists in some attractions, forming a predictable and limited spatial behavior known as "tourismification", a term coined by Russo in 2002, resulting in uneven distribution of tourists [48], over-crowded attractions [20], and low utilization of some attractions and facilities, jeopardizing the overall interests of the ancient towns. Many stakeholders of the ancient towns have already realized the importance of attraction management, and proposed specific strategies to protect the regional features of the ancient towns, including developing some unpopular attractions [31], creating a strong atmosphere by revitalizing the scenic areas with new elements [49], reinforcing spatial fabric, and controlling tourist arrivals [50].…”

“…Ancient towns in the south of the Yangtze River, having typical historical and cultural heritage unique to China, attract both domestic and international tourists based on their unique culture, customs, and landscape [18]. However, narrow streets, complicated networks, and intensive inflow in these scenic areas usually lead to the uneven distribution of tourists [19], over-crowded attractions [20], and low utilization of facilities [21], jeopardizing the overall interests of the ancient towns. To this end, the Tongli Ancient Town in the south of the Yangtze River is a suitable case for our study in terms of both methodology and practice.…”