Drainage basin reorganization and endorheic-exorheic transition triggered by climate change and human intervention

Lu, Shanlong; Jin, Jiming; Zhou, Jinfeng; Li, Xiaodong; Ju, Jianting; Li, Mingyang; Fu, Congsheng; Zhu, Liping; Zhao, Hongli; Yan, Quanshu; Xie, Changwei; Yao, Xiaojun; Fagherazzi, Sergio

doi:10.1016/j.gloplacha.2021.103494

Cited by 25 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…The risk of Lake Yanhu's overflow has garnered notable attention from both the scientific community as well as policymakers. To that end, the Chinese government constructed an artificial channel in 2019 to manually alter the hydrological connections between Lake Yanhu and the Qingshui River (Lu et al., 2021). This drainage alteration has considerably reshaped the hydrogeomorphic conditions in the headwaters of the Yangtze River (Figure 3a).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This intensification has triggered chain reactions such as melting ice, altered lake water budgets, and increased river discharge. Each of these has accelerated drainage pattern reorganization in the modern era (Chudley et al., 2019; Lu et al., 2021). For example, a recent study reported an abrupt drainage reorganization caused by warming‐promoted glacier retreat and river blockage in a subarctic region during the spring of 2016 (Shugar et al., 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…in the modern era (Chudley et al, 2019;Lu et al, 2021). For example, a recent study reported an abrupt drainage reorganization caused by warming-promoted glacier retreat and river blockage in a subarctic region during the spring of 2016 (Shugar et al, 2017).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Ongoing Drainage Reorganization Driven by Rapid Lake Growths on the Tibetan Plateau

Liu

Wang

et al. 2021

Geophysical Research Letters

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Drainage reorganization generally occurs on geological time scales under unstable river network conditions. A few local‐scale studies indicate that recent climatic changes might accelerate the drainage reorganization process. However, large‐scale drainage reorganization during the modern era is rarely documented. This study examines ongoing drainage reorganization on the endorheic Tibetan Plateau (TP) as a primary result of drastic lake expansion. A total of 11 drainage system reorganization events comprising 24 different lake basins and covering a total area of 61,115 km2 occurred between 2000 and 2018. Assuming the continued growth rate of TP lakes, we project another 20 basins will be reorganized before 2030. These drainage basin reorganizations not only alter hydrological processes in the endorheic TP but may also cause the endorheic‐exorheic transition, leading to the upstream sprawl of the Yangtze River Basin and posing outburst flooding risks on China's key infrastructure such as the Qinghai‐Tibet Railway.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Ongoing Drainage Reorganization Driven by Rapid Lake Growths on the Tibetan Plateau

Liu

Wang

et al. 2021

Geophysical Research Letters

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“…That was because this small and shallow lake experienced more than 16 m level rise and 4.5 times area expansion after the upstream lake outburst in 2011. Its salinity would get much lower as the Chinese government constructed an artificial channel in 2019 and made it become an outflow lake, being linked with the upstream Yangtze (Liu et al 2021b, Lu et al 2021. Other lakes that experienced obviously reduced salinity include Norma Co (43.40 g l −1 to 4.91 g l −1 ), Cedo Caka (168.39 g l −1 to 19.50 g l −1 ), Serbug Co (28.35 g l −1 to 4.31 g l −1 ), Dogaicoring Qangco (266.35 g l −1 to 42.00 g l −1 ), and Angdar Tso (180.87 g l −1 to 32.50 g l −1 ), etc.…”

Section: Lake Salinity Changes With Water Storage Variationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Widespread declines in water salinity of the endorheic Tibetan Plateau lakes

Song¹,

Luo²,

Li³

et al. 2022

Environ. Res. Commun.

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The Tibetan Plateau (TP) hosts more than one thousand lakes (>1km2) in its endorheic basins. The changing climate in recent decades has led to significant modifications in the endorheic hydrologic system. Most TP lakes experienced dramatically expanding areas, rising water levels, and increasing storage, which inevitably influenced the lake salinity. This study provides a regional-scale investigation of water salinity changes of the TP lakes (for 83 lakes with two-epoch salinity records, among the approximately 160 lakes >50km2) by synthesizing multi-source data around the 1970s and 2010s. Our results reveal lake salinity has considerably declined for most expanding lakes across the endorheic basins. The mean salinity of 62 terminal lakes dropped from 92.76g/L to 42.00g/L during the 1970s-2010s, in contrast to the slight variations (3.42g/L to 1.48g/L) of the 21 exorheic or upstream lakes. As a result, many hypersaline lakes have become polysaline or oligosaline lakes, such as Cedo Caka, Norma Co, etc. In particular, some large lakes (e.g., Siling Co, “Twin Lakes”, and Ayakkum Lake) also experienced significant drops in water salinity, with the exceptional cases for Nam Co and Qinghai Lake probably due to the relatively low ratios of increased water mass to their net storages. The widespread declining water salinities could greatly influence bacterial richness, diversity, and evenness, and affect the aquatic carbon cycle and utilization in the high-altitude endorheic lakes. More attention should be paid on understanding the saline lake ecosystem evolution and the regional carbon cycle in response to changing water salinity of the TP lakes.

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“…Global climate change has intensified and stimulated the global water cycle (Huntington, 2006;Huntington et al, 2018;Ficklin et al, 2019). Surface water systems in polar regions have been affected by these hydrological changes (Lu et al, 2021). As a region sensitive to global warming, the QTP (the Third Pole) warmed faster than other continental areas between 1970 and 2018, with a warming rate of 0.36°C/decade in contrast to the global average of 0.19°C/decade (Zhang et al, 2021).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatiotemporal variations and overflow risk analysis of the Salt Lake in the Hoh Xil Region using machine learning methods

Wang

Guo²,

Chen³

et al. 2023

Front. Earth Sci.

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Global warming is inducing dramatic changes in fluvial geomorphology and reshaping the hydrological connections between rivers and lakes. The water level and area of the Salt Lake have increased rapidly since the outburst of the Zonag Lake in the Hoh Xil region of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau in 2011, threatening the downstream infrastructure. However, fewer studies have focused on its spatiotemporal variation and overflow risk over long time series. Here, we used three machine learning algorithms: Classification and Regression Trees (CART), Random Forest (RF), and Support Vector Machine (SVM) to extract the area of the Salt Lake for a long time series, analyzed its spatiotemporal variation from 1973 to 2021, and finally assessed the overflow risk. The Kappa coefficient (KAPPA) and the overall accuracy (OA) were used to evaluate the performance of the models. The results showed that Random Forest performs superior in lake extraction (KAPPA = 0.98, overall accuracy = 0.99), followed by Classification and Regression Trees and Support Vector Machine. normalized difference water index is the relatively important feature variable in both RF and CART. Before the outburst event, the area change of the Salt Lake was consistent with the variation in precipitation; after that, it showed a remarkable area increase (circa 350%) in all orientations, and the main direction was the southeast. Without the construction of the emergency drainage channel, the simulation result indicated that the earliest and latest times of the Salt Lake overflow event are predicted to occur in 2020 and 2031, respectively. The results of this paper not only demonstrate that RF is more suitable for water extraction and help understand the water system reorganization event.

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Drainage basin reorganization and endorheic-exorheic transition triggered by climate change and human intervention

Cited by 25 publications

References 33 publications

Ongoing Drainage Reorganization Driven by Rapid Lake Growths on the Tibetan Plateau

Ongoing Drainage Reorganization Driven by Rapid Lake Growths on the Tibetan Plateau

Widespread declines in water salinity of the endorheic Tibetan Plateau lakes

Spatiotemporal variations and overflow risk analysis of the Salt Lake in the Hoh Xil Region using machine learning methods

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