Abstract
Runoff in the Arctic region has changed greatly under climate change and human activities. However, the quantitative impacts remain unclear in this region. In this study, the changes in climate and discharge were examined in the Ob River Basin during 1980–2017. Increasing trends were found for the variables annual air temperature, precipitation, evapotranspiration, and runoff, with rates of 0.2 °C/10a, 12.7 mm/10a, 5.4 mm/10a, and 5.4 mm/10a, respectively. The trends were significant at a 95% confidence level for the annual air temperature and runoff and significant at a higher confidence level of 99% for precipitation and evapotranspiration. Based on the slope changing ratio of cumulative quantity (SCRCQ) method, the contributions of climate change and human activities to runoff changes were discussed. In comparison with the baseline period T0 (1979–1992), the annual runoff increased in both of the comparable periods, with increments of 16.0% in T1 (1993–2002) and 8.5% in T2 (2003–2017). The contribution rates of precipitation, evapotranspiration changes, and human activities to runoff increases were 55.6%, − 2.0%, and 46.4% from T0 to T1 and 88.2%, − 41.2% and 53.0% from T0 to T2, respectively. The timing of the runoff peak advanced by approximately 12 days due to earlier snowmelt. The thawing of permafrost had little effect on annual runoff changes because of low permafrost coverage. Precipitation was the main climate factor causing an annual runoff increase. The comprehensive contribution of indirect anthropogenic influences to runoff changes might be considerable. This work has significance for water resource management in the Arctic.
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All data used in our study are available at the data sites described in Part 3.
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Acknowledgements
We appreciate the institutions and individuals that provided us with available research data as mentioned in part 3 (Data and methods). We thank Professor Daqing Yang for helpful discussions and suggestions.
Funding
This study was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2020YFA0608504), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41721091), the Youth Innovation Promotion Association CAS (2019414), the project of Key CAS Research Program of Frontier Sciences (QYZDY-SSW-DQC021), and the State Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Science (SKLCS-ZZ-2022).
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MX provided the data, DH performed the data processing and manuscript writing; SK, MX and HW made contributions to presenting the logic and structure of scientific, interpreting results, and reviewing manuscripts.
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Hu, D., Xu, M., Kang, S. et al. Impacts of climate change and human activities on runoff changes in the Ob River Basin of the Arctic region from 1980 to 2017. Theor Appl Climatol 148, 1663–1674 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-022-04021-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-022-04021-8