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A Complementary Streamflow Attribution Framework Coupled Climate, Vegetation and Water Withdrawal

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Abstract

Quantifying the contributions of climate change (CC) and human activities (HA) to streamflow alteration is significant for effective water resources management. However, numerous studies fail to differentiate the individual impacts of various HA on streamflow. In this study, a comprehensive streamflow attribution framework that incorporates climate, vegetation, and water withdrawal (WW) was proposed. In this framework, traditional streamflow attribution methods such as statistical analysis (Double Mass Curve and Slope Change Ratio of Accumulative Quantity), elasticity (Budyko), and modeling simulation (Variable Infiltration Capacity and Long Short-term Memory) are employed to separate the influence of meteorological factors (MF) on streamflow. Subsequently, the impacts of WW on streamflow are assessed using global WW data. The Residual Analysis method is utilized to quantify the effects of vegetation alteration caused by both CC (Lcc) and HA (Lha) on streamflow alteration. To demonstrate the applicability of our proposed framework, two stations, Xianyang and Huaxian, located within the Weihe River Basin in Northwest China were selected as the case study area. The results demonstrated that compared to the baseline period (1961–1990), the average contributions of MF, Lcc, Lha, and WW to streamflow reduction during the variation periods (1991–2019) were as follows: for the Xianyang station, 26.0%, 13.5%, 30.9%, and 29.6% respectively; and for the Huaxian station, 28.9%, 5.5%, 17.7%, and 47.9% respectively. Additionally, during the variation periods, the contributions of CC and HA to vegetation variation were 30.5% and 69.5% respectively in Xianyang, and 23.7% and 76.3% respectively in Huaxian. The framework developed herein also provides a solution for quantifying the indirect effects of CC on streamflow through vegetation.

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Data will be made available on request.

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Funding

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (U2243203, 51979069); the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (B200204029); the National Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province, China (BK20211202); and the Research Council of Norway (FRINATEK Project 274310).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The National Key Laboratory of Water Disaster Prevention, Hohai University, Nanjing, 210098, China

    Shanhu Jiang & Liliang Ren

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

    Shanhu Jiang, Yongwei Zhu, Liliang Ren, Hao Cui & Menghao Wang

  3. Department of Water Resources, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Beijing, 100038, China

    Denghua Yan

  4. Yellow River Institute of Hydraulic Research, Zhengzhou, 450003, China

    Ying Liu

  5. Department of Geosciences, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Chong-Yu Xu

Authors
  1. Shanhu Jiang
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  2. Yongwei Zhu
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  3. Liliang Ren
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  4. Denghua Yan
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  5. Ying Liu
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  6. Hao Cui
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  7. Menghao Wang
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  8. Chong-Yu Xu
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Contributions

Conceptualization: Shanhu Jiang; Yongwei Zhu; Methodology: Denghua Yan; Hao Cui, Ying Liu, and Menghao Wang; Funding acquisition: Shanhu Jiang, Liliang Ren, and Chong-Yu Xu.

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Correspondence to Shanhu Jiang or Yongwei Zhu.

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Jiang, S., Zhu, Y., Ren, L. et al. A Complementary Streamflow Attribution Framework Coupled Climate, Vegetation and Water Withdrawal. Water Resour Manage 37, 4807–4822 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-023-03582-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-023-03582-1

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