Partitioning the contributions of glacier melt and precipitation to the 1971–2010 runoff increases in a headwater basin of the Tarim River

Abstract

Glacier retreat and runoff increases in the last few decades characterize conditions in the Kumalak River Basin, which is a headwater basin of the Tarim River with a catchment area of 12,800 km 2. To address the scientific question of whether, and to what extent, the observed runoff increase can be attributed to enhanced glacier melt and/or increased precipitation, a glacier evolution scheme and precipitation-runoff model are developed. Using the glacio-hydrological model, we find that both glacier cover area and glacier mass in the study area have decreased from 1971 to 2010. On average, the contribution to total runoff from rainfall, glacier melt and snowmelt are 60.6%, 28.2% and 11.2%, respectively. Despite covering only 21.3% of the basin area, glacier areas contributed 43.3% (including rainfall, snowmelt and glacier melt) to the total runoff from our model estimates. Furthermore, as primary causes of increased runoff in response to the warmer and wetter climate over the period 1971-2010, contribution from increases in rainfall and glacier melt are 56.7% and 50.6%, respectively. In comparison to rainfall and glacier melt, snowmelt has a minor influence on runoff increase, accounting for-7.3%. The research has important implications for water resources development in this arid region and for some similar river basins in which glacial melt forms an important part of the hydrological cycle.

Variability of the snowline altitude in the eastern Tibetan Plateau from 1995 to 2016 using Google Earth Engine

“…Glaciers are natural water reservoirs 1,2 and are of vital importance to hydropower generation and hydrological models. 3,4 They are important indicators of climate variation [5][6][7] because fluctuations in climate can cause changes in their areal extent, volume, mass balance, [8][9][10] and equilibrium line altitude (ELA). 11 Mass balance and ELA, as direct reflections of climate change, integrate the competing effects of snow accumulation and ablation processes.…”

Assessment of Climate Change Impact on Probable Maximum Floods in a Tropical Catchment

“…A lumped conceptual model known as Mike Nedbor Afstromnings Model (NAM), developed by the Technical University of Denmark, was used for the hydrological modeling of the Temengor catchment. Hydrological model parameters cannot always be directly measured, and therefore, the conceptual models are often lumped on a catchment scale, and the catchment is considered as a single unit (Bakhtiari, 2018;Li et al, 2020;Smith, 1965). A lumped conceptual model was used in this study because it is simple but has a physical basis.…”

“…Identifying the runoff from the rainfall events is required for investigating the forecasting of the stream ow from rainfall (Smith, 1965). Such forecasts are essential for deciding design factors of hydraulic infrastructures, early warnings of oods or droughts, operating reservoir or hydropower plants, and planning irrigation and water resources management activities (Bakhtiari, 2018;Ferraro, Costabile, Costanzo, Petaccia, & Macchione, 2020;Li et al, 2020;Ren, Hong, Li, Kang, & Li, 2020;Yang, Magnusson, Huang, Beldring, & Xu, 2020). The relationship between rainfall and runoff is always very di cult to be structured because of the immense spatial and temporal variability of rainfall and the physical characteristics of the watershed, as well as a few hydrological features of the watershed that should be included in the model process (Choi, Shin, & Kim, 2020;Gan, He, & Qin, 2020;Ling et al, 2019).…”

Assessment of climate change impact on probable maximum floods in a tropical catchment

“…Identifying the runoff from the rainfall events is required for investigating the forecasting of the stream ow from rainfall (Smith, 1965). Such forecasts are essential for deciding design factors of hydraulic infrastructures, early warnings of oods or droughts, operating reservoir or hydropower plants, and planning irrigation and water resources management activities (Bakhtiari, 2018;Ferraro, Costabile, Costanzo, Petaccia, & Macchione, 2020;Li et al, 2020;Ren, Hong, Li, Kang, & Li, 2020;Yang, Magnusson, Huang, Beldring, & Xu, 2020). The relationship between rainfall and runoff is always very di cult to be structured because of the immense spatial and temporal variability of rainfall and the physical characteristics of the watershed, as well as a few hydrological features of the watershed that should be included in the model process (Choi, Shin, & Kim, 2020;Gan, He, & Qin, 2020;Ling et al, 2019).…”