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Arid Land Geography ›› 2024, Vol. 47 ›› Issue (5): 798-809.doi: 10.12118/j.issn.1000-6060.2023.536

• Climatology and Hydrology • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Prediction of future hydrological drought risk in the Yarkant River Basin based on CMIP6 models

XIANG Yanyun1(), WANG Yi2(), CHEN Yaning3, ZHANG Qifei4, ZHANG Yujie1   

  1. 1. School of Public Administration, Shanxi University of Finance and Economics, Taiyuan 030006, Shanxi, China
    2. School of Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering, North China Electric Power University, Beijing 102206, China
    3. State Key Laboratory of Desert and Oasis Ecology, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, Xinjiang, China
    4. School of Geographical Sciences, Shanxi Normal University, Taiyuan 030031, Shanxi, China
  • Received:2023-10-01 Revised:2023-11-22 Online:2024-05-25 Published:2024-05-30
  • Contact: WANG Yi E-mail:xiangyy@sxufe.edu.cn;wangyi28@ncepu.edu.cn

Abstract:

Global warming has led to the increased frequency of extreme events such as droughts, posing significant threats to ecological security and sustainable socioeconomic development, particularly in arid regions, which are highly sensitive and responsive to climate changes. This paper employs the distributed hydrological model HEC-HMS, utilizing observed meteorological and hydrological data from basin stations and global climate model data from the Sixth International Coupled Model Intercomparison Program (CMIP6), to simulate and forecast the historical (1986—2014) and future (2015—2100) runoff trends and hydrological drought risks in the Yarkant River Basin (an essential tributary of the Tarim River), Xinjiang, China. The findings indicate that: (1) The HEC-HMS model is well-suited for arid basin areas. Under the three shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) scenarios, the runoff and standardized runoff index (SRI) in the Yarkant River Basin are projected to significantly increase (P<0.1), with the SRI growth rate estimated at approximately 0.13-0.27·(10a)-1. (2) A comparative analysis of the marginal distributions of four drought characteristic variables in the basin for both historical and future periods reveals that the duration and intensity of future droughts will exceed those in the historical record, with a continuous rise in drought event magnitudes. (3) Moreover, the joint probability of future hydrological droughts in the Yarkant River Basin is expected to decrease relative to the historical period, leading to a prolonged return period for future droughts. The outcomes of this study offer valuable scientific references for water resource management and the development of strategies to mitigate hydrological drought risks in the basin.

Key words: hydrological drought, risk prediction, CMIP6, climate change