Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Temporal and spatial variations of meteorological elements and reference crop evapotranspiration in Alpine regions of Tibet, China

  • Research Article
  • Published:
Environmental Science and Pollution Research Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Reference evapotranspiration (ET0) is an important parameter for characterization of the hydrological cycle, and it is also important for agricultural, environmental, and other studies. In this study, by collecting the daily meteorological data of 31 base stations in high-altitude areas of Tibet for 35 consecutive years, the daily reference crop evapotranspiration (ET0) of each base station is calculated by the ASCE Penman-Monteith formula. The Mann-Kendall method is applied primarily to test the trend of meteorological elements and ET0. In addition, the software ArcGIS was used to generate spatial interpolation distribution maps of meteorological elements and ET0 so that the spatio-temporal variation trend of each base station is carried out. The ET0 in Shigatse shows an insignificant downward trend, while the other six regions show an upward trend, which is related to temperature and humidity directly with R2 of 0.23 and 0.67. The relative humidity (RH) and sunshine duration (SD) in Tibet show an overall three-step distribution in the east, middle, and west with RH decreasing from east to west and SD increasing from east to west. Annual cumulative ET0 of Ngari is the largest and decreases from west to east gradually, while ET0 increasing from east (lower elevation) to west (higher elevation) of Tibet with ranging from 730 to 1255 mm/year. This study not only is important for understanding of ET0 changes but also provides the preliminary and elementary reference for agricultural water management in Tibet with high elevation.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Figure 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8

Similar content being viewed by others

Data availability

The datasets used during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

References

  • Allen RG, Pereira LS, Raes D, Smith M (1998) Crop evapotranspiration – guidelines for computing crop water requirements – FAO Irrigation and Drainge Paper 56. FAO, 1998. ISBN 92-5-104219-5.

  • Bandyopadhyay A, Bhadra A, Raghuwanshi NS, Singh R (2009) Temporal trends in estimates of reference evapotranspiration over India. J Hydrol Eng 14(5):508–515

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Belmokaddem M, Mahi A, Senhadji Y, Pekmezci BY (2020) Mechanical and physical properties and morphology of concrete containing plastic waste as aggregate. Constr Build Mater 257:119559

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Burn DH, Hesch NM (2007) Trends in evaporation for the Canadian Prairies. J Hydrol 336:61–73

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chattopadhyay N, Hulme M (1997) Evaporation and potential evapotranspiration in India under conditions of recent and future climate change. Agric For Meteorol 87:55–73

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Che HZ, Shi GY, Zhang XY, Arimoto R, Zhao JQ, Xu L, Wang B, Chen ZH (2005) Analysis of 40 years of solar radiation data from China, 1961–2000. Geophys Res Lett 32:L06803. https://doi.org/10.1029/2004GL022322

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cong ZT, Yang DW, Ni GH (2009) Does evaporation paradox exist in China? Hydrol Earth Syst Sci 13:357–366

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dono G, Cortignani R, Doro L, Giraldo L, Ledda L, Pasqui M, Roggero PP (2013) An integrated assessment of the impacts of changing climate variability on agricultural productivity and profitability in an irrigated Mediterranean catchment. Water Resour Manag 27:3607–3622

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Golubev VS, Lawrimore JH, Groisman PY, Speranskaya NA, Zhuravin SA, Menne MJ, Peterson TC, Malone RW (2001) Evaporation changes over the contiguous United States and the former USSR: A reassessment. Geophys Res Lett 28(13):2665–2668

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goyal RK (2004) Sensitivity of evapotranspiration to global warming: a case study of arid zone of Rajasthan (India). Agric Water Manag 69:1–11

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hobbins MT, Ramirez JA, Brown TC (2001a) The complementary relationship in estimation of regional evapotranspiration:an enhanced advection-aridity model. Water Resour Res 37(5):1389–1403

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hobbins MT, Ramirez JA, Brown TC, Claessens LHJM (2001b) The complementary relationship in estimation of regional evapotranspiration: the complementary relationship areal evapotranspiration and advection-aridity models. Water Resour Res 37(5):1367–1387

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Immerzeel WW, van Beek LPH, Bierkens MFP (2010) Climate change will affect the Asian water towers. Science 328:1382–1385. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1183188

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • IPCC, (2014): Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report. Contribution of working groups I, II and III to the fifth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change [Core Writing Team, R.K. Pachauri and L.A. Meyer (eds.)]. IPCC, Geneva, 151 pp.

  • Liu B, Xu M, Henderson M, Gong W (2004) A spatial analysis of pan evaporation trends in China, 1955–2000. J Geophys Res 109:D15102. https://doi.org/10.1029/2004JD004511

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Liu X, Zhang D (2013) Trend analysis of reference evapotranspiration in Northwest China: The roles of changing wind speed and surface air temperature. Hydrol Process 27 (26):3941–3948

  • Ma N, Zhang YS, Szilagy J, Guo YH, Zhai JQ, Gao HF (2015) Evaluating the complementary relationship of evapotranspiration in the alpine steppe of the Tibetan Plateau. Water Resour Res 51:1069–1083

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ma N, Szilagy J, Guo YN, Zhang YS, Zhang T, Wang BB, Wu YH (2016) Evaporation variability of Nam Co Lake in the Tibetan Plateau and its role in recent rapid lake expansion. J Hydrol 537:27–35

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ma N, Zhang YS, Xu CY, Szilagy J (2019) Complementary-relationship-based modeling of terrestrial evapotranspiration across China during 1982-2012: Validations and spatiotemporal analyses. J Geophys Res-Atmos 124(8):4326–4351

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McVicar TR, Roderick ML, Donohue RJ, Li LT, Van Niel TG, Thomas A, Grieser J, Jhajharia D, Himri Y, Mahowald NM, Mescherskaya AV, Kruger AC, Rehman S, Dinpashoh Y (2012) Global review and synthesis of trends in observed terrestrial near-surface wind speeds: implications for evaporation. J Hydrol 416–417:182–205

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moonen AC, Ercoli L, Mariotti M, Masoni A (2002) Climate change in Italy indicated by agrometeorological indices over 122 years. Agric For Meteorol 111:13–27

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • National Meteorological Information Center. http://data.cma.cn

  • Peng LL, Li Y, Feng H (2017) The best alternative for estimating reference crop evapotranspiration in different sub-regions of mainland China. Sci Rep 7(1):5458

  • Pereira LS, Allen RG, Smith M, Raes D (2015) Crop evapotranspiration estimation with FAO56: past and future. Agric Water Manag 147:4–20

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Peterson TC, Golubev VS, Groisman PY (1995) Evaporation losing its strength. Nature 337:687–688

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Roderick ML, Farquhar GD (2004) Change in Australian pan evaporation from 1970 to 2002. Int J Climatol 24:1077–1090

  • Rodriguez Díaz JA, Weatherhead EK, Knox JW, Camacho E (2007) Climate change impacts on irrigation water requirements in the Guadalquivir river basin in Spain. Reg Environ Chang 7:149–159

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Saadi S, Todorovic M, Tanasijevic L, Pereira LS, Pizzigalli C, Lionello P (2015) Climate change and Mediterranean agriculture: impacts on winter wheat and tomato crop evapotranspiration, irrigation requirements and yield. Agric Water Manag 147:103–115

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sabziparvar AA, Tabari H, Aeini A, Ghafouri M (2010) Evaluation of class A pan coefficient models for estimation of reference crop evapotranspiration in cold-semi arid and warm arid climates. Water Resour Manag 24(5):909–920

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Song ZW, Zhang HL, Snyder RL, Anderson FE, Chen F (2010) Distribution and trends in reference evapotranspiration in the North China Plain. J Irrig Drain Eng 136(4):240–247

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sun CJ, Zheng ZJ, Chen W, Wang YY (2020) Spatial and temporal variations of potential evapotranspiration in the Loess Plateau of China during 1960-2017. Sustainability 12(1):354

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tabari H, Aeini A, Talaee PH, Some’e BS (2012) Spatial distribution and temporal variation of reference evapotranspiration in arid and semi-arid regions of Iran. Hydrol Process 26:500–512

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tang PC, Xu B, Gao ZY, Li HP, Gao XY, Wang CZ (2018) Estimating reference crop evapotranspiration with elevation based on an improved HS model. Hydrol Res 50(1):187–199

  • Thomas A (2000) Spatial and temporal characteristics of potential evapotranspiration trends over China. Int J Climatol 20:381–396

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wang JXL, Gaffen DJ (2001) Late-twentieth-century climatology and trends of surface humidity and temperature in China. J Clim 14(13):2833–2845

  • Wang Y, Jiang T, Bothe O, Fraedrich K (2007) Changes of pan evaporation and reference evapotranspiration in the Yangtze River basin. Theor Appl Climatol 90:13–23

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wang ZL, Xie PW, Lai CG, Chen XH, Wu XS, Zeng ZY, Li J (2017) Spatiotemporal variability of reference evapotranspiration and contributing climatic factors in China during 1961–2013. J Hydrol 544:97–108. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2016.11.021

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • WMO (2015) Record Global Temperatures and high impact weather and climate extremes https://www.wmo.int/media/content/record-global-temperatures-and-high-impact-weather-and-climate-extremes. Accessed 1 November 2015.

  • Wu GX, Duan AM, Liu YM, Mao JY, Ren RC, Bao Q, He B, Liu BQ, Hu WT (2015) Tibetan Plateau climate dynamics: recent research progress and outlook. Natl Sci Rev 2:100–116

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Xie Y, Zhang RY, Yin SQ, Tian DD, Gao G (2020) Long-term trend of air humidity over China in the context of global warming during 1961—2010. Adv Water Sci. 1-14. http://kns.cnki.net/kcms/detail/32.1309.p.20200528.1322.002.html

  • Xiong W, Holman I, Lin E, Conway D, Jiang J, Xu Y, Li Y (2010) Climate change, water availability and future cereal production in China. Agric Ecosyst Environ 135:58–69

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Xu ZX, Li JY (2003) A distributed approach for estimating catchment evapotranspiration: comparison of the combination equation and the complementary relationship approaches. Hydrol Process 17:1509–1523

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Xu CY, Singh VP (2005) Evaluation of three complementary relationship evapotranspiration models by water balance approach to estimate actual regional evapotranspiration indifferent climatic regions. J Hydrol 308:105–121

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Xu CY, Gong LB, Jiang T, Chen DL, Singh VP (2006) Analysis of spatial distribution and temporal trend of reference evapotranspiration and pan evaporation in Changjiang (Yangtze River) catchment. J Hydrol 327:81–93

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yin Y, Wu S, Chen G, Dai E (2010) Attribution analyses of potential evapotranspiration changes in China since the 1960s. Theor Appl Climatol 101:19–28

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhang Q, Xu CY, Chen YD, Ren L (2011a) Comparison of evapotranspiration variations between the Yellow River and Pearl River basin, China. Stoch Environ Res Risk Assess 25:139–150

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhang Q, Xu CY, Chen X (2011b) Reference evapotranspiration changes in China: natural processes or human influences. Theor Appl Climatol 103:479–488

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhao ZY, Wang HR, Wang C, Li WC, Chen H, Gong SX (2020) Impacts of climatic change on reference crop evapotranspiration across different climatic zones of Ningxia at multi-time scales from 1957 to 2018. Adv Meteorol 3156460:1–23

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

The contributions of the editor and anonymous reviewers whose comments and suggestions significantly improved this article are also appreciated.

Funding

This research was supported by the Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research Program (2019QZKK0207), Visiting Researcher Fund Program of State Key Laboratory of Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering Science (2018NSG01), and Science Researching fund projects of China institute of water resources and Hydropower research (MK2020J04).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering Science, Wuhan, 430072, China

    Pengcheng Tang & Bing Xu

  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

    Pengcheng Tang, Bing Xu, Delong Tian, Jie Ren & Zekun Li

  3. Yinshanbeilu National Field Research Station of Desert Steppe Eco-hydrological System, Hohhot, 010020, China

    Pengcheng Tang

  4. Institute of Water Resources for Pastoral Area Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Hohhot, 010020, China

    Bing Xu

Authors
  1. Pengcheng Tang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Bing Xu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Delong Tian
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Jie Ren
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Zekun Li
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

Pengcheng Tang: Conceived and designed research ideas, analyzed the data and wrote the paper

Bing Xu: Conceived and designed research ideas, analyzed the data and wrote the paper

Delong Tian: Conceived and designed research ideas and wrote the paper

Jie Ren: Data collection and Wrote the paper

Zekun Li: Data collection

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Bing Xu.

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Not applicable.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues

Publisher’s note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Tang, P., Xu, B., Tian, D. et al. Temporal and spatial variations of meteorological elements and reference crop evapotranspiration in Alpine regions of Tibet, China. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 36076–36091 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-12771-7

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-12771-7

Keywords

Search

Navigation