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Precipitation variability and its response to urbanization in the Taihu Lake Basin, China

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Abstract

The precipitation pattern in the Taihu Lake basin in East China has significantly changed over the last decades, perhaps due to intensive urbanization. However, there is limited understanding of the effect of large-scale expansion of city groups on the precipitation variability, which causes a challenge for flood control in the basin. Considering the process of urbanization, we investigated in this study the variability of precipitation in different urban zones and characteristic scales and explored the influence of urban development on the rain island effect in the basin. The basin was divided into three zones (old urban area, new urban area, and suburbs) considering different degrees of urbanization. Results indicated that precipitation change and its response to urbanization had spatial differences at various characteristic scales. Urbanization exhibited a significant “precipitation enhancement effect” at the characteristic scales including annual, flood season, summer, autumn, and winter but indicated a “precipitation reduction effect” in spring. Annual (flood season) precipitation in 1990–2013 increased by 30.04 mm (16.94 mm), due to urbanization, compared with that in the preceding period. The rate of contribution of urbanization to precipitation increase was 15.6%, 41.1%, and 14.4% in summer, autumn, and winter. The enhancement effect of short duration rainfall extremes in old urban area was also discernible, and that in new urban areas would enhance along with urban expansion, complicating urban flood and waterlogging control. More effective adaptation strategies should be implemented to handle the unfavorable situation.

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Data availability

The data used in this study will be available (by the corresponding author) upon reasonable requests.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the most appropriate comments and suggestions given by the editor and the anonymous reviewer.

Funding

This study was financially supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2017YFA0603702), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51809252, 41971040), and the Youth Innovation Promotion Association CAS (No. 2017074), and the SINO-GERMAN Mobility Programme (M-0369).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Water Cycle and Related Land Surface Processes, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China

    Jian Hu, Yan-Fang Sang & Changming Liu

  2. School of Engineering Management and Auditing, Nanjing Audit University, Nanjing, 211815, China

    Jian Hu

  3. State Key Laboratory of Hydrology-Water Resources and Hydraulic Engineering, Nanjing Hydraulic Research Institute, Nanjing, 210029, China

    Yong Liu & Yan-Fang Sang

  4. Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering and Zachry Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

    Vijay P. Singh

  5. National Water and Energy Center, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates

    Vijay P. Singh

Authors
  1. Jian Hu
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  2. Yong Liu
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  3. Yan-Fang Sang
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  4. Changming Liu
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  5. Vijay P. Singh
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Contributions

Jian Hu: methodology, software, data analysis, and writing original draft. Yong Liu: writing, and data analysis. Yan-Fang Sang: conception, methodology, writing, and revising. Changming Liu: review and editing. Vijay P. Singh: writing and editing.

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Correspondence to Yan-Fang Sang.

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Hu, J., Liu, Y., Sang, YF. et al. Precipitation variability and its response to urbanization in the Taihu Lake Basin, China. Theor Appl Climatol 144, 1205–1218 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-021-03597-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-021-03597-x

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