Hydrologic Alteration and Possible Underlying Causes in the Wuding River, China
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Science of the Total Environment 693 (2019) 133556 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Science of the Total Environment journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/scitotenv Hydrologic alteration and possible underlying causes in the Wuding River, China Xiaojing Tian a,b, Guangju Zhao a,b,⁎, Xingmin Mu a,b, Pengfei Zhang a,b, Peng Tian a,c, Peng Gao a,b, Wenyi Sun a,b a State Key Laboratory of Soil Erosion and Dryland Farming on the Loess Plateau, Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China b Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Chinese Academy of Sciences & Ministry of Water Resources, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China c College of Natural Resources and Environment, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China HIGHLIGHTS GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT • We assessed the hydrologic alteration and investigated possible underlying causes. • The hydrological regime altered highly since 1970s. • Index of Connectivity decreased gradu- ally, whereas index of check dams/res- ervoirs increasing. • Degree of hydrologic alteration was more sensitive to the land use changes. • Land use changes and construction of check dams/reservoirs greatly affected hydrological regime. article info abstract Article history: Understanding hydrological alteration of rivers and the potential driving factors are crucial for water resources Received 22 April 2019 management in the watershed. This study analyzed the daily runoff time series at six gauging stations during Received in revised form 6 July 2019 1960–2016 in Wuding River basin, northwestern China. The Mann–Kendall test and Lee-Heghinian method Accepted 22 July 2019 were employed to detect the temporal trends and abrupt changes in annual streamflow. The flow duration Available online 23 July 2019 curve (FDC) and the index of hydrologic alteration (IHA)/Range of Variability Approach (RVA) were applied to fl Editor: Ralf Ludwig assess the daily stream ow and degree of hydrologic alteration (DHA). In addition, we analyzed the changes of index of hydrological connectivity (IC) and reservoirs/dams (RI) in 1990, 1995, 2000 and 2015 in the basin. Keywords: The relationship between IC, RI and DHA were assessed to investigate the potential influences of land use changes Hydrologic alteration and constructions of reservoirs/dams on hydrological alteration. The results indicated that annual streamflow at IHA/RVA five stations showed significant downward trends (p b 0.01) from 1960 to 2016, and an abrupt changing point Temporal variation appeared in the beginning of 1970s in Wuding River basin. Exception is Qingyangcha station without significant Underlying causes changes, and Hanjiamao station with changing point in 1967. FDC analysis indicated that both high and low flow Wuding River basin indices reduced greatly. The integral DHA were higher than 70% at all the stations in the Wuding River basin, sug- gesting great variation in the magnitude, duration, frequency, timing and rate of change of daily streamflow. Both IC value and RI had close relationship with DHA, implying that DHA was highly affected by land use changes and dams/reservoirs constructions, and was more sensitive to the land use change (p b 0.01). This study provides good insight to understand the effects of soil and water conservation measures on hydrological regime. © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. ⁎ Corresponding author at: State Key Laboratory of Soil Erosion and Dryland Farming on the Loess Plateau, Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China. E-mail address: [email protected] (G. Zhao). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.07.362 0048-9697/© 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 2 X. Tian et al. / Science of the Total Environment 693 (2019) 133556 1. Introduction which the ecological restoration measures were responsible for the sig- nificant reduction in annual streamflow. There are several studies focus- Water resources always play a critical role in the process of social de- ing on runoff and sediment load variation and their potential driving velopment of human being and ecological civilization construction factors (Xu, 2009; Zhang et al., 2010). However, very few studies paid (Zhao et al., 2015; Forootan et al., 2019). The spatiotemporal distribu- attention to hydrological regimes alteration. tion of water resources in many basins around the word is influenced Therefore, the objectives of this study were to analyze temporal var- by uneven precipitation and complex topography, and has experienced iation of the magnitude, duration, frequency, timing and rate of change significant changes in the past few decades (Gao and Huang, 2001; Piao of discharge by using a long-term series with IHA/RVA approach. The et al., 2010). These changes are related to many aspects—including potential effects of human activities on hydrological alteration were in- water supply and allocation, agricultural development, flood disaster, vestigated by assessing the relationship between hydrological indices droughts, ecological restoration, and they directly influence regional and hillslope connectivity and reservoir index. The finding of this sustainable development (Li et al., 2009; Li et al., 2017). It is worth not- study can provide a good reference for water resources allocation and ing that the reduction of surface/underground water will aggravate the future soil and water conservation. degree of drought and decrease agricultural production, as well as dete- rioration of ecological environment in arid areas (Van Loon and Laaha, 2. Study area and dataset 2015; Wanders and Wada, 2015). Therefore, assessing hydrological al- teration at regional and local scales is valuable for water redistribution 2.1. Study area and allocation. The most effective approach for assessing hydrologic alteration is The Wuding River, with a total length of 491.1 km and a drainage IHA/RVA, which includes 33 indices in five groups and analyzed hy- area of 30,261 km2,isafirst order tributary of the Yellow River in drological alteration comprehensively and deeply (Richter et al., China (Fig. 1). The river originates from the north of Shaanxi Prov- 1996). In recent years, IHA/RVA has drawn more attention from ince, flows through the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and many researchers in ecological hydrology and was widely applied discharged into the Yellow River in Shaanxi Province. It has several to many basins in the world (Gao et al., 2009; Lin et al., 2016). branches of Hailiutu, Luhe and Dali Rivers (Fig. 1). The watershed Pfeiffer and Ionita (2017) found that some hydrological indices has typical temperate continental arid and semi-arid climate pattern were highly altered and hydrological regime changed significantly with mean annual temperature and precipitation of 7.9–11.2 °C and since the middle of the 20th century, a probable consequence of cli- 491.1 mm, respectively. Most of precipitation concentrated between mate change, in the Elbe River and Rhine River. Yang et al. (2008) June and September with rainstorms. Approximately 45.65% of the evaluated the degree of hydrologic alteration in the middle and basin is covered by fine loess in the south and eastern part, and lower Yellow River and results showed that hydrologic regime al- 54.35% is relative coarse sandy area (Musu desert). The average an- tered highly at Huayuankou gauging station causing by Xiaolangdi nual soil erosion rate is higher than 8000 t/km2/a, and the annual reservoir. The alteration of the hydrologic regime across the Pearl runoff depth is 36.54 mm/a. In the basin, arable land, grassland and River Delta is moderate and high in monthly mean maximum and desert area dominated the land use and cover, and forest land minimum water level (Zhang et al., 2009). A study in the Yangtze accounted for b10% of the whole basin. River showed that the hydrological regime exhibited high degree of alteration in the middle and lower reaches due to the construction 2.2. Data collection of Three Gorges Dam (Guo et al., 2019). Since the 1950s, large amount of soil and water conservation mea- The daily runoff at six hydrological stations (Fig. 1): Baijiachuan sures, i.e. check dams and terraces, and converting slope arable land to (BJC), Suide (SD), Lijiahe (LJH), Qingyangcha (QYC), Hanjiamao forest and grass, have been carried out to improve vegetation cover (HJM) and Dingjiagou (DJG) from 1960 to 2016 were collected (Xu, 2003; Huang and Zhang, 2004; Mu et al., 2007; Zhang et al., from the Hydrological Year book of the Yellow River basin, which is 2008; Gao et al., 2013). Consequently, these measures greatly affected published by the Yellow River Conservancy Committee (Table 1). land use and vegetation cover, thereby altered hydrological regime in The data quality of the daily discharge has been checked by the offi- the Yellow River. Numerous studies have investigated the variation of cial authorities. There were no gaps among these data at all the hy- streamflow and sediment discharge in response to climate change and drological stations. human activities to understand the changing characteristics and poten- The Digital Elevation Model (DEM) with a resolution of 90 × 90 m tial driving factors (Liu and Zheng, 2004; Wang et al., 2013; Zhao et al., was downloaded from USGS (http://www.usgs.gov). The land use 2014). Zhao et al. (2015) found that annual streamflow along the main data in four different periods (1990, 2000, 2005 and 2015) were ob- Yellow River gauging stations presented significant decreasing trends (p tained from the Data-Sharing Network of China Earth System Sci- b 0.01), and an abrupt-change point was examined in 1986 due to large ence (http://www.geodata.cn). The Yellow River Conservancy reservoir operation. Gao et al. (2013) showed that from 1932 to 2008 in Committee provided spatial distribution of check dams and reser- the Wei River the contribution rate of human activity to streamflow and voirs, including the locations, storage capacity, construction dates, sediment discharge was found to be 82.8% and 95.6%, respectively.