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The response of river discharge to climate fluctuations in the source region of the Yellow River

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Abstract

The Yellow River is the second biggest river in China and serves as a source of domestic and agricultural water supply in the watershed. In the last several decades, this river’s discharge reduced to zero several times since 1960, especially in the 1990s. The decreasing river flow has caused some serious eco-environmental problems in the source region. To study the important effects of climate on river discharge in the source area, a data set of 44 water-year river flow, air temperature and precipitation is selected and wavelet analysis is performed to describe and identify the features of climate (air temperature and precipitation) and river discharge. Results of continuous wavelet transform (CWT) show that all three parameters have common significant periods of 1–2 and 3–6 years against red noise in different time spans while river discharge probably has a 16-year-period mainly in the cone of influence (COI). Comparison of river flow and its CWT suggests these zero river flows are connected to extreme low values located in different scales, indicating that climate does control the river discharge in the source area. The cross wavelet (XWT) and wavelet coherence (WTC) clearly illustrate that the first zero river discharge (about in 1961) is only related to precipitation, while the rest have resulted from the combination of air temperature and precipitation.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions. This research was supported by the Knowledge Innovation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (KZCX2-YW-Q06-2-3), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41072187), and the High-level Radioactive Waste Geological Disposal Project from State Administration of Science Technology and Industry for National Defense.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Engineering Geology and Water Resources, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China

    Jianfeng Zhang & Guomin Li

  2. Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, China

    Jianfeng Zhang

  3. School of Water Resources and Environment, China University of Geosciences, Beijing, 100083, China

    S. Liang

Authors
  1. Jianfeng Zhang
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  2. Guomin Li
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  3. S. Liang
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Correspondence to Jianfeng Zhang.

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Zhang, J., Li, G. & Liang, S. The response of river discharge to climate fluctuations in the source region of the Yellow River. Environ Earth Sci 66, 1505–1512 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-011-1390-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-011-1390-4

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