Quantitative assessment of the impacts of irrigation on surface water fluxes in the Tarim River, China

Hao, Zhenchun; Chen, Sichun; Li, Zehua; Yu, Zhigang; Shao, Quanxi; Yuan, Fei; Shi, Fangxin

doi:10.2166/nh.2015.215

Cited by 14 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…The Aksu, Hotan, Yarkant and Kaidu rivers, which originate in the Tianshan and Kunlun Mountains, feed the main stem of the Tarim River. Amongst these, the Aksu River is the largest tributary, accounting for 70-80% of the Tarim River's discharge observed at Alaer (Figure 1) (Tang et al, 2007;Hao et al, 2015;Li et al, 2016). The runoff in the Aksu basin originates from orographic rainfall, seasonal snowmelt and glacier melt (You, 1995;Jiang et al, 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Shi

Tang

et al. 2020

Journal of Hydrology

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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.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Shi

Tang

et al. 2020

Journal of Hydrology

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“…In some regions, the extraction of water for irrigation has reduced the availability of both surface and groundwater. For example, the discharge of the Tarim River basin in northwestern China has decreased substantially since 1960s, as 70%–90% of surface water flows are used for irrigation (Hao et al., 2015). In the High Plains in the USA, the water level of aquifers has declined substantially due to the large irrigation water withdrawal (McGuire, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Implementation and Evaluation of Irrigation Techniques in the Community Land Model

Yao

Vanderkelen

Lombardozzi

et al. 2022

J Adv Model Earth Syst

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Irrigation is an important aspect of agricultural management, with irrigated areas providing ∼40% of global food production over only ∼20% of global cropland (WWAP, 2019). It is fundamental to the food security of less developed countries, where populations have experienced fast growth (Schultz et al., 2005). Since the 1950s, the global irrigated land area has expanded rapidly, thereby increasing worldwide irrigation water demand. Consequently, irrigation currently accounts for ∼90% (∼1,200 km 3 by the end of 20th century) of the global total consumptive freshwater use (

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“…Water withdrawal for irrigation has been widely adopted to increase crop production in arid and semi-arid regions. Water redistribution through irrigation enhances water and energy fluxes between soils and the atmosphere (Rost et al, 2008;Sacks et al, 2009), and results in elevated water loss through evapotranspiration (Hao et al, 2015;Malek et al, 2017;Polo and Losada, 2016), and depletion of water resources (Aeschbach-Hertig and Gleeson, 2012) in different regions of the world. To better simulate impacts of irrigation, numerical models have been developed to quantify water fluxes among soils, vegetation, and water bodies induced by irrigation (Leng et al, 2013;Santhi et al, 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Implications of water management representations for watershed hydrologic modeling in the Yakima River Basin

Qiu¹,

Yang²,

Huang³

et al. 2018

Preprint

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Abstract. Water management substantially alters natural regimes of streamflow through modifying retention time and water exchanges among different components of the terrestrial water cycle. Accurate simulation of water cycling in intensively managed watersheds, such as the Yakima River Basin (YRB) in the Pacific Northwest of the U.S., faces challenges in reliably characterizing influences of management practices (e.g., reservoir operation and cropland irrigation) on the watershed hydrology. Using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model, we evaluated streamflow simulations in the YRB based on different reservoir operation and irrigation schemes. Simulated streamflow with the reservoir operation scheme optimized by the RiverWare model better reproduced measured streamflow than the simulation using default SWAT reservoir operation scheme. Scenarios with irrigation practices demonstrated higher water losses through evapotranspiration (ET), and matched benchmark data better than the scenario that only considered reservoir operations. Results of this study highlight the importance of reliably representing reservoir operations and irrigation management for credible modeling of watershed hydrology. Both SWAT and RiverWare are community-based and have been widely tested and applied for reservoir operations and agricultural watershed modeling in regions across the globe. As such, the methods and findings presented here hold the promise to apply to other intensively managed watersheds to enhance water resources assessment.

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Quantitative assessment of the impacts of irrigation on surface water fluxes in the Tarim River, China

Cited by 14 publications

References 25 publications

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

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

Implementation and Evaluation of Irrigation Techniques in the Community Land Model

Implications of water management representations for watershed hydrologic modeling in the Yakima River Basin

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