Streamflow response to climate and landuse changes in Qingshui River watershed in the loess hilly-gully region of Western Shanxi Province, China

doi:10.3773/j.issn.1005-264x.2010.07.005

Abstract

Abstract:

Aims Shortage of water resources is a key ecological problem facing the Loess Plateau. Therefore, it is critically important to understand and predict the coupling effects of landuse and climate variability on streamflow characteristics for integrated watershed management and ecological restoration. We used the typical meso-scale Qingshui River watershed located in middle reach of the Yellow River to examine the trend of annual streamflow and separate the effects of landuse change on streamflow from that of climate variability.

Methods The trend of annual streamflow, precipitation and potential evapotranspiration and their inflection points were analyzed and examined using the nonparametric Mann-Kendall test, Moving t-test technique and analysis of hopped parameter. Three phases of landuse for the watershed were obtained representing the original and dramatic landuse changes due to the watershed ecological restoration. Landuse in 1959 (original) was interpreted from the aerial photo image taken that year. Landuses in 1986 (Three Norths Shelterbelt Program) and 2007 (Three Norths and Land Conversion Program) were extracted and merged from four-season Landsat TM images by deploying Geomatica V8.2. The stream flow response to landuse and climatic variability was separated following the approach Milly and Dunne (2002) developed on the basis of water balance. In addition, the landuse and climate variability effects on the high, normal and low flow were examined by flow duration curve (FDC) analysis.

Important findings Streamflow decreased significantly during 1960 to 2005, with the inflection point in 1980. We estimated that streamflow reduction from 1980 to 2005 compared to 1960 to 1980 was attributable to landuse change (53.21%) and climate change (46.79%). Because precipitation had no significant trend and potential evapotranspiration significantly increased from 1960 to 2005, we concluded that the streamflow reduction was mainly due to the temperature-induced increase in potential evapotranspiration and evapotranspiration increase by increased forest landuse.

Key words: climate variation, land use, loess hilly-gully region, Qingshui River watershed, streamflow

TANG Li-Xia, ZHANG Zhi-Qiang, WANG Xin-Jie, WANG Sheng-Ping, ZHA Tong-Gang. Streamflow response to climate and landuse changes in Qingshui River watershed in the loess hilly-gully region of Western Shanxi Province, China[J]. Chin J Plant Ecol, 2010, 34(7): 800-810.

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Figures/Tables 9

Fig. 1 Geographical position of Qingshui River watershed.

Fig. 2 Annual variation of streamflow, potential evapotranspiration, and precipitation with their respective linear regression line.

Fig. 3 Trend of annual streamflow, potential evapotranspiration, and precipitation in Qingshui River watershed from 1960 to 2005. A-C, The Mann-Kendall curves of streamflow, potential evapotranspiration, and precipitation, respectively. D-F, The Moving t-test curves of streamflow, potential evapotranspiration, and precipitation, respectively. C1, the curve of statistics of Mann-Kendall; C2, the curve of deserialized statistics of Mann-Kendall; T, statistics of Moving t-test; α, significance level.

Table 1 Area and the change rate of area of different land use types

	年份 Year	农地 Cropland	乔木林地 Woodland	灌木林地 Shrubland	荒草地 Grassland	居民区 Residential area
面积 Area (km²)	1959	105.12	12.38	97.97	220.14	0.44
	1986	44.52	115.71	91.12	183.86	0.78
	2007	37.28	129.19	116.89	157.70	2.88
面积变化率 Area change rate (%)	1959-1986	-57.67	835.41	-6.99	-16.46	83.36
	1986-2007	-34.09	11.64	28.29	-14.23	268.71
	1959-2007	-72.10	944.27	19.33	-28.35	576.07

Table 2 Variations of annual streamflow, mean temperature, potential evapotranspiration and precipitation in Qingshui River watershed

	基准段(1960-1980年) Baseline period (1960-1980)			变化段(1981-2005年) Changed period (1981-2005)
	平均值 Mean	标准偏差 SD	变异系数 CV (%)	平均值 Mean	标准偏差 SD	变异系数CV (%)
径流量 Streamflow	2.15×10⁷ m³	1.04×10⁷ m³	0.48	8.7×10⁶ m³	2.78×10⁶ m³	0.32
潜在蒸发散 Potential evapotranspiration	800.09 mm	16.85 mm	0.02	815.58 mm	36.81 mm	0.04
降水量 Pricipitation	552.30 mm	137.48 mm	0.25	528.50 mm	95.41 mm	0.18

Table 3 Effects of climate and landuse change on streamflow in the Qingshui River watershed

时段 Period	降水量P (mm)	潜在蒸发散E₀(mm)	径流量 Q (mm)	$\Delta {{Q}^{tot}}^{{}}$(mm)	$\Delta {{\overline{Q}}^{c\lim }}$(mm)	$\Delta {{\overline{Q}}^{LUCC}}$(mm)
1960-1980	552.3	800.09	50.98	-32.29	-15.11	-17.18
1981-2005	528.5	815.58	18.69	-32.29	-15.11	-17.18

Fig. 4 Accumulated frequency distribution curve of baseline period and changed period (expressed as logarithmic curve).

Fig. 5 Trend of different flow of annual streamflow in Qingshui River watershed from 1960 to 2005. C1, C2, T, α see Fig. 3.

Fig. 6 Trend of annual streamflow from 1981 to 2005. C1, C2, T, α see Fig. 3.

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