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Effects of climate change on annual streamflow using climate elasticity in Poyang Lake Basin, China

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Abstract

Hydrological processes depend directly on climate conditions [e.g., precipitation, potential evapotranspiration (PE)] based on the water balance. This paper examines streamflow datasets at four hydrological stations and meteorological observations at 79 weather stations to reveal the streamflow changes and underlying drivers in four typical watersheds (Meigang, Saitang, Gaosha, and Xiashan) within Poyang Lake Basin from 1961 to 2000. Most of the less than 90th percentile of daily streamflow in each watershed increases significantly at different rates. As an important indicator of the seasonal changes in the streamflow, CT (the timing of the mass center of the streamflow) in each watershed shows a negligible change. The annual streamflow in each watershed increases at different rates, with a statistically significant trend (at the 5 % level) of 9.87 and 7.72 mm year−1, respectively, in Meigang and Gaosha watersheds. Given the existence of interactions between precipitation and PE, the original climate elasticity of streamflow can not reflect the relationship of streamflow with precipitation and PE effectively. We modify this method and find the modified climate elasticity to be more accurate and reasonable using the correlation analysis. The analyses from the modified climate elasticity in the four watersheds show that a 10 % increase (decrease) in precipitation will increase (decrease) the annual streamflow by 14.1–16.3 %, while a 10 % increase (decrease) in PE will decrease (increase) the annual streamflow by −10.2 to −2.1 %. In addition, the modified climate elasticity is applied to estimate the contribution of annual precipitation and PE to the increasing annual streamflow in each watershed over the past 40 years. Our result suggests that the percentage attribution of the increasing precipitation is more than 59 % and the decreasing in PE is less than 41 %, indicating that the increasing precipitation is the major driving factor for the annual streamflow increase for each watershed.

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Acknowledgments

This work was jointly supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (grant no. 2011CB952000) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 40775061 and grant no. 41075082). The authors would like to thank all the data providing agencies and people who supported the research. Thanks also go to Dr. Liming Zhou (SUNY, Albany) and Dr. Yixing Yin (NUIST, Nanjing) for their careful review of the language and kind help in improving the English translation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Applied Hydrometeorological Research Institute, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology (NUIST), 210044, Nanjing, China

    Shanlei Sun

  2. Key Laboratory of Meteorological Disaster of Ministry of Education, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology (NUIST), Ningliu Road 219, 210044, Nanjing, China

    Shanlei Sun & Haishan Chen

  3. International Institute for Earth System Science, Nanjing University, 210093, Nanjing, China

    Weimin Ju

  4. Department of Geography, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, 60115, IL, USA

    Jie Song

  5. College of Hydrology and Water Resources, Hohai University, 210098, Nanjing, China

    Hao Zhang

  6. Wuhan Regional Climate Center, 430074, Wuhan, China

    Jie Sun

  7. Key Laboratory of Poyang Lake Environment and Resource Utilization Ministry of Education, Nanchang University, 330029, Nanchang, China

    Yujie Fang

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  1. Shanlei Sun
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Sun, S., Chen, H., Ju, W. et al. Effects of climate change on annual streamflow using climate elasticity in Poyang Lake Basin, China. Theor Appl Climatol 112, 169–183 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-012-0714-y

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