Abstract
Effects of agricultural activities on temporal variations in streamflow were investigated based on an integrated hydrological model in the Heihe River Basin (HRB). De-trended fluctuation analysis was conducted using the simulated time series of the daily streamflow at 13 observation points along the Heihe River. Both the original and deseasonalized streamflow were obtained and analyzed. We found that temporal variations of the natural watershed streamflow without the interference of agricultural activities are nonstationary, but become relatively stationary when agricultural activities occur. This indicates a weakened damping effect of the hydrological system on hydrological signals. Agricultural activities mainly affect the trends in streamflow, as the trends may have been gradually removed with increasing agricultural activities. Therefore, long-term correlation of the streamflow decreases and eventually converges to the long memory, which remains invariant under the disturbance of agricultural activities. A practical significance of the results from this study for the water resources management in the agricultural regions is that more attention should be given to the trend identification, especially when predicting extreme hydrological events, such as drought or flood.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Cohn TA, Lins HF (2005) Nature’s style: naturally trendy. Geophys Res Lett. https://doi.org/10.1029/2005gl024476
Condon LE, Maxwell RM (2014) Groundwater-fed irrigation impacts spatially distributed temporal scaling behavior of the natural system: a spatio-temporal framework for understanding water management impacts. Environ Res Lett. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/9/3/034009
Craigmile PF, Guttorp P, Percival DB (2004) Trend assessment in a long memory dependence model using the discrete wavelet transform. Environmetrics 15(4):313–335. https://doi.org/10.1002/env.642
Eke A, Herman P, Kocsis L, Kozak LR (2002) Fractal characterization of complexity in temporal physiological signals. Physiol Meas 23(1):R1–R38. https://doi.org/10.1088/0967-3334/23/1/201
Harbaugh AW (2005) MODFLOW-2005, the U.S. Geological Survey modular ground-water model—the ground-water flow process: U.S. Geological Survey techniques and methods 6-A16
Hu K, Ivanov PC, Chen Z, Carpena P, Stanley HE (2001) Effect of trends on detrended fluctuation analysis. Phys Rev E 64(1):011114. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.64.011114
Hurst HE (1951) Long-term storage capacity of reservoirs. Trans Am Soc Civ Eng 116:770–799
Kantelhardt JW (2011) Fractal and multifractal time series. In: Meyers RA (ed) Mathematics of complexity and dynamical systems. Springer, New York, pp 463–487
Kantelhardt JW, Koscielny-Bunde E, Rybski D, Braun P, Bunde A, Havlin S (2006) Long-term persistence and multifractality of precipitation and river runoff records. J Geophys Res Atmos. https://doi.org/10.1029/2005jd005881
Kim DH, Rao PSC, Kim D, Park J (2016) 1/f noise analyses of urbanization effects on streamflow characteristics. Hydrol Process 30(11):1651–1664. https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.10727
Kirchner JW, Feng XH, Neal C (2000) Fractal stream chemistry and its implications for contaminant transport in catchments. Nature 403(6769):524–527
Koscielny-Bunde E, Kantelhardt JW, Braun P, Bunde A, Havlin S (2006) Long-term persistence and multifractality of river runoff records: detrended fluctuation studies. J Hydrol 322(1):120–137. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2005.03.004
Li ZW, Zhang YK (2007) Quantifying fractal dynamics of groundwater systems with detrended fluctuation analysis. J Hydrol 336(1–2):139–146. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2006.12.017
Li ZW, Zhang YK (2008) Multi-scale entropy analysis of mississippi river flow. Stoch Environ Res Risk Assess 22(4):507–512. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00477-007-0161-y
Markstrom SL, Niswonger RG, Regan RS, Prudic DE, Barlow PM (2008) GSFLOW—coupled groundwater and surface-water flow model based on the integration of the precipitation-runoff modeling system (PRMS) and the modular ground-water flow model (MODFLOW-2005). U.S. Geological Survey Techniques and Methods 6-D1, p 240
Markstrom SL, Regan RS, Hay LE, Viger RJ, Webb RMT, Payn RA, LaFontaine JH (2015) PRMS-IV, the precipitation-runoff modeling system, version 4. U.S. Geological Survey Techniques and Methods, book 6, chap. B7, p 158. http://dx.doi.org/10.3133/tm6B7
Matsoukas C, Islam S, Rodriguez-Iturbe I (2000) Detrended fluctuation analysis of rainfall and streamflow time series. J Geophys Res Atmos 105(D23):29165–29172. https://doi.org/10.1029/2000JD900419
Merritt ML, Konikow LF (2000) Documentation of a computer program to simulate lake-aquifer interaction using the MODFLOW ground water flow model and the MOC3D solute-transport model. U.S Geological Survey Techniques and Methods
Milly PCD, Betancourt J, Falkenmark M, Hirsch RM, Kundzewicz ZW, Lettenmaier DP, Stouffer RJ (2008) Climate change. Stationarity is dead: Whither water management? Science (New York, NY) 319(5863):573. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1151915
Mudelsee M (2007) Long memory of rivers from spatial aggregation. Water Resour Res 43(1):1. https://doi.org/10.1029/2006WR005721
Mudelsee M, Borngen M, Tetzlaff G, Grunewald U (2003) No upward trends in the occurrence of extreme floods in central Europe. Nature 425(6954):166–169
Niswonger RG, Prudic DE (2005) Documentation of the streamflow-routing (SFR2) package to include unsaturated flow beneath streams—a modification to SFR1. U.S. Geological Survey, Reston
Rakhshandehroo GR, Amiri SM (2012) Evaluating fractal behavior in groundwater level fluctuations time series. J Hydrol 464:550–556
Sagarika S, Kalra A, Ahmad S (2014) Evaluating the effect of persistence on long-term trends and analyzing step changes in streamflows of the continental United States. J Hydrol 517:36–53. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2014.05.002
Szolgayova E, Laaha G, Bloschl G, Bucher C (2014) Factors influencing long range dependence in streamflow of European rivers. Hydrol Process 28(4):1573–1586. https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.9694
Tian Y, Zheng Y, Zheng C, Xiao H, Fan W, Zou S, Liu J (2015) Exploring scale-dependent ecohydrological responses in a large endorheic river basin through integrated surface water–groundwater modeling. Water Resour Res 51(6):4065–4085. https://doi.org/10.1002/2015WR016881
Tian Y, Xiong J, He X, Pi X, Jiang S, Han F, Zheng Y (2018) Joint operation of surface water and groundwater reservoirs to address water conflicts in arid regions: an integrated modeling study. Water 10(8):1105
Wu BF, Yan NN, Xiong J, Bastiaanssen WGM, Zhu WW, Stein A (2012) Validation of ETWatch using field measurements at diverse landscapes: a case study in Hai Basin of China. J Hydrol 436:67–80
Yang G, Bowling LC (2014) Detection of changes in hydrologic system memory associated with urbanization in the Great Lakes region. Water Resour Res 50(5):3750–3763. https://doi.org/10.1002/2014WR015339
Yang C, Zhang Y-K, Liang X (2018) Analysis of temporal variation and scaling of hydrological variables based on a numerical model of the Sagehen Creek watershed. Stoch Environ Res Risk Assess 32(2):357–368. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00477-017-1421-0
Yue JH, Zhao XJ, Shang PJ (2010) Effect of trends on detrended fluctuation analysis of precipitation series. Math Probl Eng 2010:176–190. https://doi.org/10.1155/2010/749894
Zhang Y-K, Schilling K (2004) Temporal scaling of hydraulic head and river base flow and its implication for groundwater recharge. Water Resour Res 40(3):1. https://doi.org/10.1029/2003wr002094
Acknowledgements
This study was supported with research grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41807198), the Shenzhen Science and Technology Innovation Commission (JCYJ20160530190547253), the Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Soil and Groundwater Pollution Control (2017B030301012), the National Students’ Platform for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program (201814325004), and the Special Funds for the Cultivation of Guangdong College Students’ Scientific and Technological Innovation (pdjh0038). The authors thank two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments that have significantly improved the paper.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Chen, C., Tian, Y., Zhang, YK. et al. Effects of agricultural activities on the temporal variations of streamflow: trends and long memory. Stoch Environ Res Risk Assess 33, 1553–1564 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00477-019-01714-x
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00477-019-01714-x