Xinjun Tu

Space–time changes in hydrological processes in response to human activities and climatic change in the south China

Due to the influence of climate change and human activities, more and more regions around the world are nowadays facing serious water shortages. This is particularly so with the Guangdong province, an economically prosperous region in China. This study aims at understanding the abrupt behavior of hydrological processes by analyzing monthly precipitation series from 257 rain gauging stations and monthly streamflow series from 25 hydrological stations using the likelihood ratio statistic and schwarz information criterion (SIC). The underlying causes of the changing properties of hydrological processes are investigated by analyzing precipitation changes and information of water reservoirs. It is found that (1) streamflow series in dry season seems to exhibit abrupt changes when compared to that in the flood season; (2) abrupt changes in the values of mean and variance of hydrological variables in the dry season are more common than those in the streamflow series in the flood season, which implies that streamflow in the dry season is more sensitive to human activities and climate change than that in the flood season; (3) no change points are identified in the annual precipitation and precipitation series in the flood season. Annual streamflow and streamflow in the flood season exhibit no abrupt changes, showing the influence of precipitation on streamflow changes in the flood season. However, streamflow changes in the dry season seem to be heavily influenced by hydrological regulations of water reservoirs. The results of this study are of practical importance for regional water resource management in the Guangdong province.

Uncertainty and variability in bivariate modeling of hydrological droughts

Abstract There are two kinds of uncertainty factors in modeling the bivariate distribution of hydrological droughts: the alteration of predefined critical ratios for pooling droughts and excluding minor droughts and the temporal variability of univariate and/or bivariate characteristics of droughts due to the impact of human activities. Daily flow data covering a period of 56 hydrological years from two gauging stations from a humid region in South China are used. The influences of alterations of threshold values of flow and critical ratios of pooling droughts and excluding minor droughts on drought properties are analyzed. Six conventional univariate models and three Archimedean copulas are employed to fit the marginal and joint distributions of drought properties, the Kolmogorov–Smirnov and Anderson–Darling methods are used for testing the goodness-of-fit of the univariate model, and the Cramer-von Mises method based on Rosenblatt’s transform is applied for the test of the bivariate model. The change point analysis of the copula parameter of bivariate distribution of droughts is first made. Results demonstrate that both the statistical characteristics of each drought property and their bivariate joint distributions are sensitive to the critical ratio of excluding minor droughts. A model can be selected to fit the marginal distribution for drought deficit volume or maximum deficit, but it is not determined for drought duration with the lower ratios of the pooling and excluding droughts. The statistical uncertainty of drought duration makes the modeling of bivariate joint distribution of drought duration and deficit volume or of drought duration and maximum deficit undermined. Change points significantly occurred in the period from the late 1970s to the middle 1980s for a single drought property and the copula parameter of their joint distribution due to the impact of human activities. The difference between two subseries separated by the change point is remarkable in the magnitudes of drought properties and the joint return periods. A copula function can be selected to optimally fit the bivariate distribution, provided that the critical ratios of pooling and excluding droughts are great enough such as the optimal value of 0.4 in the case study. It is valuable that the modeling and designing of the bivariate joint correlation and distribution of drought properties can be performed on the subseries separated by the change point of the copula parameter.

Evaluation of transitional behavior of wetness/drought regimes in the Poyang Lake Basin, China

Transitional behavior of wetness/dryness regimes is investigated using the standardized precipitation/runoff indices (SPI-SRI) and the Markov chain model, and wetness/drought conditions are predicted. Results indicate that (1) the wetness/drought hazards have large negative impacts during initial conditions in the Xiuhe River Basin and manifest their negative impacts during the development condition of the wetness/droughts in the Fuhe and Xiuhe River Basins; in the Ganjiang and Raohe River Basins, however, droughts have their greatest impacts during the lasting time intervals, (2) the occurrence of meteorological or hydrological droughts/floods individually is subject to very low probability, implying close relations between meteorological and hydrological conditions within the Poyang Lake Basin, and (3) an abrupt shift between hydrometeorological wetness and dryness events is identified, specifically in northwest and northeast parts of the Poyang Lake Basin, which could be due to intensifying precipitation regimes in these regions under the influence of increasing temperature. The prediction of droughts indicates that the transitional probability from the second condition to the hydrological drought is the lowest and the transitional probability from the first (or third) condition to the fourth condition is the largest. Results of this study will be of value for developing measures for mitigation of droughts in a changing environment.

Fuzzy-Based Comprehensive Evaluation of Environmental Flow Alteration

Environmental flow alterations of the key factors influencing aquatic health of a river basin, and it is particularly true for highly-fragmented rivers. In this paper, a new comprehensive evaluation technique using the fuzzy theory was developed. The evaluation index system of environmental flow alteration was firstly established including the relative change of median and deviation, degree of alteration quantifies from range of variability approach (RVA), and histogram matching approach (HMA). Then, the weight of each evaluation index was determined using the entropy theory and order dualistic comparison method. Finally, the overall alteration degree of the 32 IHA (Indicators of Hydrologic Alteration) parameters was generated by fuzzy comprehensive method. Two main control stations, the Yichang station located at the outlet of the Upper Yangtze basin and the Gaoyao station located at the outlet of the west river of Pearl River basin, were selected as case study stations. The results showed that each evaluation index only reflects parts of characteristics of alteration in each parameter, and their contributions to comprehensive alteration of each IHA parameter were different over the stations. The developed comprehensive evaluation method can make the weight determination more scientific and credible, and effectively overcome the shortcomings of traditional single-factor evaluation and offer more reasonable quantitative evaluation of environmental flow alteration.