Quantifying the contributions of snow/glacier meltwater to river runoff in the Tianshan Mountains, Central Asia

Chen, Haiyan; Chen, Yaning; Li, Weihong; Li, Zhi

doi:10.1016/j.gloplacha.2019.01.002

Cited by 72 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…The contribution of snow-glacier meltwater to runoff is up to 45%, with precipitation accounting for about 33.1% [80]. For the Toxkan River, glacier meltwater accounts for only about 21.3% of the total annual runoff [81], with the rest coming from snow meltwater (26.7%) [82] and rainfall [26], while for the Kumalak River, glacier meltwater makes up around 54%~58.65% of the runoff [81,83,84]. runoff [81], with the rest coming from snow meltwater (26.7%) [82] and rainfall [26], while for the Kumalak River, glacier meltwater makes up around 54%~58.65% of the runoff [81,83,84].…”

Section: Research Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

Recent Changes in Water Discharge in Snow and Glacier Melt-Dominated Rivers in the Tienshan Mountains, Central Asia

Zhang

Chen

et al. 2020

Remote Sensing

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Global warming has generally led to changes in river runoffs fed by snow and glacier meltwater in mountain ranges. The runoff of the Aksu River, which originates in the Southern Tienshan Mountains, exhibited a positive trend during 1979–2002, but this trend reversed during 2002–2015. Through a comprehensive analysis, this study aims to estimate potential reasons for changes in the runoff of its two contrasting headwaters: the Toxkan and Kumalak Rivers, based on climatic data, the altitude of the 0 °C isotherm, glacier mass balance (GMB), snow cover area (SCA), snow depth (SD) and the sensitivity model. For the Toxkan River, the decrease in spring runoff mainly resulted from reductions in precipitation, whereas the decrease in summer runoff was mainly caused by early snowmelt in spring and a much-reduced snow meltwater supply in summer. In addition, the obvious glacier area reduction in the catchment (decreased to less than 4%) also contributed to the reduced summer runoff. For the Kumalak River, a sharp decrease rate of 10.21 × 108 m3/decade in runoff was detected due to summertime cooling of both surface and upper air temperatures. Reduced summer temperatures with a positive trend in precipitation not only inhibited glacier melting but also dropped the 0 °C layer altitude, resulting in a significant increase in summertime SCA and SD, a slowing of the glacier negative mass balance, and a lowering of the snow-line altitude.

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Section: Research Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

Recent Changes in Water Discharge in Snow and Glacier Melt-Dominated Rivers in the Tienshan Mountains, Central Asia

Zhang

Chen

et al. 2020

Remote Sensing

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“…The Tianshan Mountains are the largest mountainous range in Central Asia, which covers a total area of about 800,000 km 2 [47]. These mountains are experiencing a temperate continental climate system with scarce precipitation [48]. Considering the data availability of reference gauging stations, the present assessment of the satellite-derived precipitation products was conducted only in the Chinese part of the Tianshan Mountains which covers a spatial domain between 39 (Figure 1).…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

Performance Evaluation of Version 5 (V05) of Integrated Multi-Satellite Retrievals for Global Precipitation Measurement (IMERG) over the Tianshan Mountains of China

Yang

Anjum

et al. 2019

Water

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This study evaluated the performance of the Integrated Multi-satellite Retrievals for Global Precipitation Measurement (IMERG) version 5 (V05) Early-run and Final-run (IMERG-E and IMERG-F, respectively) products over the Tianshan Mountains. For comparison, the accuracies of two Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) products (3B42RT and 3B42V7) were also analyzed. Performance of the satellite-based precipitation products (SPPs) was analyzed at daily to annual scales from April 2014 to October 2017. Results showed that: (1) IMERG-F and 3B42V7 performed better than IMERG-E and 3B42RT in the characterization of spatiotemporal variability of precipitation; (2) Precipitation estimates from IMERG-F were in the best overall agreement with the gauge-based data, followed by IMERG-E and 3B42V7 on all temporal scales; (3) IMERG-E and 3B42RT products were failed to provide accurate precipitation amounts, whereas IMERG-F and 3B42V7 were able to provide accurate precipitation estimates with the lowest relative biases (4.98% and −1.71%, respectively) and RMSE (0.58 mm/day and 0.76 mm/day, respectively); (4) The enhancement from the IMERG Early-run to the Final-run to capture the moderate to heavy precipitation events was not evident; (5) On seasonal scale, IMEGR-F performed better than all other SPPs, particularly during the spring season with negligible bias (0.28%). It was deduced that IMERG-F was capable of replacing TRMM products.

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“…These results are consistent with a number of recent studies. For example, Zhao et al [26] concluded that, based on the VIC model, the glacier melt contribution was 43.8%, and Chen et al [62], in conducting hydrograph separation based on end-member mixing analysis, suggested a contribution of 59% of glacier melt water during the glacier melt period (July-August). In a related study, Yang [63] estimated a contribution of 40% of glacier melt to streamflow based on empirical coefficient methods.…”

Section: Glacier Melt Contributionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multi-Objective Calibration of a Distributed Hydrological Model in a Highly Glacierized Watershed in Central Asia

Fang

Jian

Chen

2019

Water

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Understanding glacio-hydrological processes is crucial to water resources management, especially under increasing global warming. However, data scarcity makes it challenging to quantify the contribution of glacial melt to streamflow in highly glacierized catchments such as those in the Tienshan Mountains. This study aims to investigate the glacio-hydrological processes in the SaryDjaz-Kumaric River (SDKR) basin in Central Asia by integrating a degree-day glacier melt algorithm into the macro-scale hydrological Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model. To deal with data scarcity in the alpine area, a multi-objective sensitivity analysis and a multi-objective calibration procedure were used to take advantage of all aspects of streamflow. Three objective functions, i.e., the Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency coefficient of logarithms (LogNS), the water balance index (WBI), and the mean absolute relative difference (MARD), were considered. Results show that glacier and snow melt-related parameters are generally sensitive to all three objective functions. Compared to the original SWAT model, simulations with a glacier module match fairly well to the observed streamflow, with the Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency coefficient (NS) and R2 approaching 0.82 and an absolute percentage bias less than 1%. Glacier melt contribution to runoff is 30–48% during the simulation period. The approach of combining multi-objective sensitivity analysis and optimization is an efficient way to identify important hydrological processes and recharge characteristics in highly glacierized catchments.

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Quantifying the contributions of snow/glacier meltwater to river runoff in the Tianshan Mountains, Central Asia

Cited by 72 publications

References 51 publications

Recent Changes in Water Discharge in Snow and Glacier Melt-Dominated Rivers in the Tienshan Mountains, Central Asia

Recent Changes in Water Discharge in Snow and Glacier Melt-Dominated Rivers in the Tienshan Mountains, Central Asia

Performance Evaluation of Version 5 (V05) of Integrated Multi-Satellite Retrievals for Global Precipitation Measurement (IMERG) over the Tianshan Mountains of China

Multi-Objective Calibration of a Distributed Hydrological Model in a Highly Glacierized Watershed in Central Asia

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