Quantification of Climate Changes and Human Activities That Impact Runoff in the Taihu Lake Basin, China

Abstract

Although a fragile climate region, the Taihu Lake Basin is among the most developed regions in China and is subjected to intense anthropogenic interference. In this basin, water resources encounter major challenges (e.g., floods, typhoons, and water pollution). In this study, the impacts of climate changes and human activities on hydrological processes were estimated to aid water resource management in developed regions in China. The Mann-Kendall test and cumulative anomaly curve were applied to detect the turning points in the runoff series. The year of 1982 divides the study period (1956~2008) into a baseline period (1956~1981) and a modified period (1982~2008). The double mass curve method and the hydrological sensitivity method based on the Budyko framework were applied to quantitatively attribute the runoff variation to climate changes and human activities. The results demonstrated that human activities are the dominant driving force of runoff variations in the basin, with a contribution of 83~89%; climate changes contributed to 11~17% of the variations. Moreover, the subregions of the basin indicated that humans severely disturbed the runoff variation, with contributions as high as 95~97%.

Analysis of the Contribution Rate of Climate Change and Anthropogenic Activity to Runoff Variation in Nenjiang Basin, China

“…Currently, most studies are concentrated on the influence of climate changes on the hydrological situation of the basin, such as research on Himalayan region [15], or distinguishing the climate factors (atmospheric temperature, rainfall) and quantifying the contribution rate of each climate factor to the influence over runoff [16]. Some researchers also cover the contribution of climate change and human activities to basin runoff, although with the focus mainly on the whole basin or the upstream area [17,18], fewer research and comparisons are carried out on upstream, mid-stream, and downstream areas. There is a big difference between the methods of the studies, but each method has its own limits.…”

Atmospheric and human‐induced impacts on temporal variability of water level extremes in the Taihu Basin, China

“…Water level measurement becomes an important task for levee construction and flood control in this region. Since the late 1980s, rapid economic development and intensive human activities have profoundly altered the land use and other environmental factors in the basin (Peng, Qiu, Fang, & Zhang, ). There has been an increasing trend in water level over the past 50 years and the alterations of water level were mainly caused by the combination of climate variability and increasing human activities (Z. Chen & Wang, ; G. Xu et al, ; Yin, Xu, & Chen, ).…”

An Enriched Prediction Intervals Construction Method with Hybrid Intelligent Optimization

“…To make optimal water resource allocation, precise runoff prediction is always needed and is one of the most important issues in the field of hydrology [1]. In the literature, most of forecasting methods are focused on developing accurate deterministic point forecasting methods for runoff time series [2][3][4].…”