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Arid Land Geography ›› 2021, Vol. 44 ›› Issue (5): 1373-1383.doi: 10.12118/j.issn.1000–6060.2021.05.18

• Earth Surface Process • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Effects of climate and underlying surface changes on runoff of Yarkant River Source

REN Cai1,2(),LONG Aihua1,2(),YU Jiawen1,2,YIN Zhenliang3,ZHANG Ji1,2   

  1. 1. College of Water and Architectural Engineering, Shihezi University, Shihezi 832000, Xinjiang, China
    2. State Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of Water Cycle in River Basin, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Beijing 100038, China
    3. Key Laboratory of Ecohydrology of Inland River Basin, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, Gansu, China
  • Received:2020-09-21 Revised:2020-11-18 Online:2021-09-25 Published:2021-09-22
  • Contact: Aihua LONG E-mail:a573291712@qq.com;ahlong@iwhr.com

Abstract:

Climate and underlying surface changes are the main factors affecting the changes in the hydrological cycle of a river basin. Research on the response of the runoff evolution to climate and underlying surface changes at different temporal and spatial scales is the basis of water resource planning and management. This study took the upper reaches of the Yarkand River Basin in Xinjiang, China as the study area, constructed a SWAT distributed hydrological model embedded with glacier modules, and simulated the monthly runoff from 1968 to 2017 at the Kaqun Hydrological Station to evaluate the model’s applicability in the study area. The simulation results were used to analyze the interannual variability and the intra-year distribution of the glacier runoff in the study area and quantitatively calculate the contribution rate of climate and underlying surface changes to runoff changes. The results show that the model has good applicability during the runoff simulation in the study area. The R2 during the calibration period from 1968 to 1992 and the verification period from 1993 to 2017 was 0.77 and 0.86, respectively; the NSE was 0.76 and 0.85, respectively; the RSR was 0.49 and 0.38, respectively; and the PBIAS was -7.4% and 0.6%, respectively. The simulation showed that the glacier runoff in the study area generally increased in the past 50 years, with the proportion of the total runoff being approximately 51.1%. The glacier runoff mainly occurred from June to September of the year, accounting for 90.0% of the annual glacier runoff. The changes in climate and land use increased the monthly runoff by 6.62 m3·s-1 and 0.41 m3·s-1, respectively. The contribution rate of climate change is 94.2%, depicting that the impact of climate change on the runoff in the study area is dominant. The research results can provide a scientific basis for understanding the causes of the historical runoff changes in the study area and predicting the future runoff evolution trends.

Key words: climate change, underlying surface change, SWAT model, glacier runoff simulation, Yarkant River Basin