Abstract:Water resources are rich on the Tibetan Plateau, with large amounts of glaciers, lakes, and permafrost. Terrestrial water storage (TWS) on the Tibetan Plateau has experienced a significant change in recent decades. However, there is a lack of research about the spatial difference between TWSC and lake water storage change (LWSC), which is helpful to understand the response of water storage to climate change. In this study, we estimate the change in TWS, lake water storage (LWS), soil moisture, and permafrost, … Show more
“…Although declining GWS seemed to contradict lake expansions in the Inner Plateau, the increasing GWS was consistent with upward lake volume in the northern Inner Plateau (Wang, Wang, Li, et al, 2021). Besides, our results have the same spatial pattern of GWS trends as Qiao et al (2021) with declining and increasing trends in the northern and southern Inner Plateau (Figure 2a), respectively. The downward GWS in the southern Inner Plateau may leak out by cross-basin groundwater flow through tensional fractures and deep normal faults (Yong et al, 2021).…”
Section: Solid Water Melt Dominates Gws Increase In the Tpsupporting
confidence: 77%
“…In the Qaidam, our results showed an increasing GWS (0.66 ± 0.13 Gt/yr) in 2003-2016, which (Jiang et al, 2020;Xu et al, 2022), which are in agreement with our results. Leaving aside other factors, GWS changes in our study and Qiao et al (2021) should be more reasonable as current studies use the updated GRACE products.…”
Section: Comparison Of Gws Changes With Previous Studiesmentioning
Understanding how groundwater storage (GWS) responds to climate change is essential for water resources management and future water availability in the Tibetan Plateau (TP). However, the dominant factor controlling long‐term GWS changes remains unclear and its responses to climate change are not well understood. Here we combined multi‐source datasets including in‐situ measurements, satellite observations, global models, and reanalysis products to reveal that GWS increased at 5.59 ± 1.44 Gt/yr during 2003–2016 while showing spatial heterogeneities with increasing trends in northern TP and glacial regions and declining trends in central and southern TP. The accelerated transformation from solid water (glaciers, snow, and permafrost; −17.72 ± 1.53 Gt/yr) into liquid water provide more recharge to groundwater, dominating the total GWS increase. This study contributes to a better understanding of the hydrological cycle under climate change and provides key information for projecting water availability under different future scenarios in the TP.
“…Although declining GWS seemed to contradict lake expansions in the Inner Plateau, the increasing GWS was consistent with upward lake volume in the northern Inner Plateau (Wang, Wang, Li, et al, 2021). Besides, our results have the same spatial pattern of GWS trends as Qiao et al (2021) with declining and increasing trends in the northern and southern Inner Plateau (Figure 2a), respectively. The downward GWS in the southern Inner Plateau may leak out by cross-basin groundwater flow through tensional fractures and deep normal faults (Yong et al, 2021).…”
Section: Solid Water Melt Dominates Gws Increase In the Tpsupporting
confidence: 77%
“…In the Qaidam, our results showed an increasing GWS (0.66 ± 0.13 Gt/yr) in 2003-2016, which (Jiang et al, 2020;Xu et al, 2022), which are in agreement with our results. Leaving aside other factors, GWS changes in our study and Qiao et al (2021) should be more reasonable as current studies use the updated GRACE products.…”
Section: Comparison Of Gws Changes With Previous Studiesmentioning
Understanding how groundwater storage (GWS) responds to climate change is essential for water resources management and future water availability in the Tibetan Plateau (TP). However, the dominant factor controlling long‐term GWS changes remains unclear and its responses to climate change are not well understood. Here we combined multi‐source datasets including in‐situ measurements, satellite observations, global models, and reanalysis products to reveal that GWS increased at 5.59 ± 1.44 Gt/yr during 2003–2016 while showing spatial heterogeneities with increasing trends in northern TP and glacial regions and declining trends in central and southern TP. The accelerated transformation from solid water (glaciers, snow, and permafrost; −17.72 ± 1.53 Gt/yr) into liquid water provide more recharge to groundwater, dominating the total GWS increase. This study contributes to a better understanding of the hydrological cycle under climate change and provides key information for projecting water availability under different future scenarios in the TP.
“…The lake fluoride value showed the same decrease, which may be related to the increase in lake water storage for decades caused by climate change—the increasing trend of air temperature and precipitation in the Tibet Plateau from 1975 to 2016 (Yan et al 2018 ). Other researchers have also revealed that major ions decreased in response to regional climatic change in Tibetan lakes (Qiao et al 2021 ; Yan et al 2018 ). Fig.…”
Section: Resultsmentioning
confidence: 93%
“…Moreover, several important rivers in Southeast Asia, such as the Ganges, Indus and Salween rivers, originate in this region. The TP is considered the “Asian Water Tower”, providing fresh water for nearly one-third of the world’s population (Qiao et al 2021 ) and playing a vital role in maintaining human health and economic and social development. The water quality of the TP has a profound influence not only on China but also on all of Southeast Asia.…”
The Tibetan Plateau (TP) is known as the “Asian Water Tower” and provides vital drinking water for residents of China and Southeast Asian countries. However, large-scale regional research on water quality in this climate-sensitive and ecologically-fragile area is still lacking. Considering that drinking from fluoride-contaminated water poses serious health concerns worldwide, especially in Asian counties, it is urgent to clarify the spatial–temporal distribution characteristics, influencing factors, and health risk of fluoride in surface water in the TP. In this study, a total of 2697 surface water samples from major rivers and typical lakes in the TP were systematically analysed. Overall, fluoride concentrations ranged from 0.003 to 6.240 mg L
−1
and varied among water periods, water basins and even water types. Pearson’s correlation analysis showed that the distribution of fluoride concentration was closely related to the regional climate and positively correlated with anthropogenic activities. Probabilistic health risk assessment revealed that potential hazards in the Inner Basin were the highest for all age groups (HR > 1), especially for infants and adults (HR > 3), while the risks in most other water basins were acceptable (HR < 1). Our findings can provide scientific support for fluorosis prevention, and guide water resource utilization in the TP and adjacent regions.
Supplementary Information
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12403-022-00490-4.
“…Moreover, several important rivers in Southeast Asia, such as the Ganges, Indus, and Salween rivers, originate in this region. The TP is considered the "Asian Water Tower", providing fresh water for nearly one-third of the world's population (Qiao et al, 2021) and playing a vital role in maintaining human health and economic and social development. The water quality of the TP has a profound in uence not only on China but also on all of southeast Asia.…”
The Tibetan Plateau (TP) is known as the “Asian Water Tower” and provides vital drinking water for residents of China and Southeast Asian countries. However, large-scale regional research on water quality in this climate-sensitive and eco-fragile area is still lacking. Considering that drinking from fluoride-contaminated water has posed serious health concerns worldwide, especially in Asian counties, it is urgent to clarify the spatial-temporal distribution characteristics, influencing factors, and health risk of fluoride in surface water in the TP. In this study, a total of 2697 surface water samples from major rivers and typical lakes in the TP were systematically analysed. Overall, fluoride concentrations ranged from 0.005 mg L−1 to 6.240 mg L−1 and varied among water periods, water basins and even water types. Pearson’s correlation analysis showed that the distribution of fluoride concentration was closely related to regional climate and positively correlated with anthropogenic activities. Probabilistic health risk assessment revealed that potential hazards in the Inner basin remained highest for all age groups (HR>1), especially for infants and adults (HR>3), while the risks in most other water basins were acceptable (HR < 1). In addition, more than 75% of the residents affected by the surface water in the TP were assessed as having a low fluoride exposure health risk. Our findings can provide scientific support for fluorosis prevention, as well as guide water resource utilization in the TP and adjacent region.
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