Projected Effects of Climate Change on Future Hydrological Regimes in the Upper Yangtze River Basin, China

Joint Authors

Yuan, Fei
Yang, Xiaoli
Liu, Yi
Ren, Liliang
Wang, Yuqian
Zhang, Mengru
Zhang, Linqi
Yu, Xiaohan
Jiang, Shanhu

Source

Advances in Meteorology

Issue

Vol. 2019, Issue 2019 (31 Dec. 2019), pp.1-14, 14 p.

Publisher

Hindawi Publishing Corporation

Publication Date

2019-01-14

Country of Publication

Egypt

No. of Pages

14

Main Subjects

Physics

Abstract EN

Climate change directly impacts the hydrological cycle via increasing temperatures and seasonal precipitation shifts, which are variable at local scales.

The water resources of the Upper Yangtze River Basin (UYRB) account for almost 40% and 15% of all water resources used in the Yangtze Basin and China, respectively.

Future climate change and the possible responses of surface runoff in this region are urgent issues for China’s water security and sustainable socioeconomic development.

This study evaluated the potential impacts of future climate change on the hydrological regimes (high flow (Q5), low flow (Q95), and mean annual runoff (MAR)) of the UYRB using global climate models (GCMs) and a variable infiltration capacity (VIC) model.

We used the eight bias-corrected GCM outputs from Phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) to examine the effects of climate change under two future representative concentration pathways (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5).

The direct variance method was adopted to analyze the contributions of precipitation and temperature to future Q5, Q95, and MAR.

The results showed that the equidistant cumulative distribution function (EDCDF) can considerably reduce biases in the temperature and precipitation fields of CMIP5 models and that the EDCDF captured the extreme values and spatial pattern of the climate fields.

Relative to the baseline period (1961–1990), precipitation is projected to slightly increase in the future, while temperature is projected to considerably increase.

Furthermore, Q5, Q95, and MAR are projected to decrease.

The projected decreases in the median value of Q95 were 21.08% to 24.88% and 16.05% to 26.70% under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, respectively; these decreases were larger than those of MAR and Q5.

Temperature increases accounted for more than 99% of the projected changes, whereas precipitation had limited projected effects on Q95 and MAR.

These results indicate the drought risk over the UYRB will increase considerably in the future.

American Psychological Association (APA)

Wang, Yuqian& Yang, Xiaoli& Zhang, Mengru& Zhang, Linqi& Yu, Xiaohan& Ren, Liliang…[et al.]. 2019. Projected Effects of Climate Change on Future Hydrological Regimes in the Upper Yangtze River Basin, China. Advances in Meteorology،Vol. 2019, no. 2019, pp.1-14.
https://search.emarefa.net/detail/BIM-1118529

Modern Language Association (MLA)

Wang, Yuqian…[et al.]. Projected Effects of Climate Change on Future Hydrological Regimes in the Upper Yangtze River Basin, China. Advances in Meteorology No. 2019 (2019), pp.1-14.
https://search.emarefa.net/detail/BIM-1118529

American Medical Association (AMA)

Wang, Yuqian& Yang, Xiaoli& Zhang, Mengru& Zhang, Linqi& Yu, Xiaohan& Ren, Liliang…[et al.]. Projected Effects of Climate Change on Future Hydrological Regimes in the Upper Yangtze River Basin, China. Advances in Meteorology. 2019. Vol. 2019, no. 2019, pp.1-14.
https://search.emarefa.net/detail/BIM-1118529

Data Type

Journal Articles

Language

English

Notes

Includes bibliographical references

Record ID

BIM-1118529