Zhentao Cong

A distributed scheme developed for eco-hydrological modeling in the upper Heihe River

Modeling the hydrological processes at catchment scale requires a flexible distributed scheme to represent the catchment topography, river network and vegetation pattern. This study has developed a distributed scheme for eco-hydrological simulation in the upper Heihe River. Based on a 1 km × 1 km grid system, the study catchment is divided into 461 sub-catchments, whose main streams form the streamflow pathway. Furthermore, a 1 km grid is represented by a number of topographically similar “hillslope-valley” systems, and the hillslope is the basic unit of the eco-hydrological simulation. This model is tested with a simplified hydrological simulation focusing on soil-water dynamics and streamflow routing. Based on a 12-year simulation from 2001 to 2012, it is found that variability in hydrological behavior is closely associated with climatic and landscape conditions especially vegetation types. The subsurface and groundwater flows dominate the total river runoff. This implies that the soil freezing and thawing process would significantly influence the runoff generation in the upper Heihe basin. Furthermore, the runoff components and water balance characteristics vary among different vegetation types, showing the importance of coupling the vegetation pattern into catchment hydrological simulation. This paper also discusses the model improvement to be done in future study.

Alpine vegetation phenology dynamic over 16 years and its covariation with climate in a semi-arid region of China

Vegetation phenology is a sensitive indicator of ecosystem response to climate change, and plays an important role in the terrestrial biosphere. Improving our understanding of alpine vegetation phenology dynamics and the correlation with climate and grazing is crucial for high mountains in arid areas subject to climatic warming. Using a time series of SPOT Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data from 1998 to 2013, the start of the growing season (SOS), end of the growing season (EOS), growing season length (GSL), and maximum NDVI (MNDVI) were extracted using a threshold-based method for six vegetation groups in the Heihe River headwaters. Spatial and temporal patterns of SOS, EOS, GSL, MNDVI, and correlations with climatic factors and livestock production were analyzed. The MNDVI increased significantly in 58% of the study region, whereas SOS, EOS, and GSL changed significantly in <5% of the region. The MNDVI in five vegetation groups increased significantly by a range from 0.045 to 0.075. No significant correlation between SOS and EOS was observed in any vegetation group. The SOS and GSL were highly correlated with temperature in May and April-May, whereas MNDVI was correlated with temperature in August and July-August. The EOS of different vegetation groups was correlated with different climatic variables. Maximum and minimum temperature, accumulated temperature, and effective accumulated temperature showed stronger correlations with phenological metrics compared with those of mean temperature, and should receive greater attention in phenology modeling in the future. Meat and milk production were significantly correlated with the MNDVI of scrub, steppe, and meadow. Although the MNDVI increased in recent years, ongoing monitoring for rangeland degradation is recommended.

Understanding hydrological trends by combining the Budyko hypothesis and a stochastic soil moisture model

Abstract The actual evapotranspiration and runoff trends of five major basins in China from 1956 to 2000 are investigated by combining the Budyko hypothesis and a stochastic soil moisture model. Based on the equations of Choudhury and Porporato, the actual evapotranspiration trends and the runoff trends are attributed to changes in precipitation, potential evapotranspiration, rainfall depth and water storage capacity which depends on the soil water holding capacity and the root depth. It was found that the rainfall depth increased significantly in China during the past 50 years, especially in southern basins. Contributions from changes in the water storage capacity were significant in basins where land surface characteristics have changed substantially due to human activities. It was also observed that the actual evapotranspiration trends are more sensitive to precipitation trends in water-limited basins, but more sensitive to potential evapotranspiration trends in energy-limited basins. Editor D. Koutsoyiannis; Associate editor A. Porporato

Spatial Interpolation of Daily Precipitation in a High Mountainous Watershed Based on Gauge Observations and a Regional Climate Model Simulation

AbstractPrecipitation is a primary climate forcing factor in catchment hydrology, and its spatial distribution is essential for understanding the spatial variability of ecohydrological processes in a catchment. In mountainous areas, meteorological stations are generally too sparse to represent the spatial distribution of precipitation. This study develops a spatial interpolation method that combines meteorological observations and regional climate model (RCM) outputs. The method considers the precipitation–elevation relationship in the mountain region and the topographic effects, especially the mountain blocking effect. Furthermore, using this method, this study produced a 3-km-resolution precipitation dataset from 1960 to 2014 in the middle and upper reaches of the Heihe River basin located on the northern slope of the Qilian Mountains in the northeastern Tibetan Plateau. Cross validation based on the station observations showed that this method is reasonable. The rationality of the interpolated precipit...

Impacts of surface heterogeneity on dry planetary boundary layers in an urban‐rural setting

Understanding the impacts of land use and land-cover change such as urbanization is essential in many disciplines. This study investigates the impacts of urban-rural contrasts in terms of momentum roughness length (z0) and aerodynamic surface temperature (TSK) on dry planetary boundary layers (PBLs) using large-eddy simulations (LES) with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. In addition, the impacts of small-scale heterogeneities within urban areas are also examined. The original WRF-LES is modified in order to use prescribed TSK as surface boundary conditions. Numerical simulations are then conducted to examine turbulence characteristics and mesoscale circulations resulting from large-scale urban-rural contrasts as well as small-scale heterogeneities in urban areas. The results indicate that (1) the urban-rural contrasts in z0 and TSK have significant but different impacts on surface heat fluxes, mesoscale circulations, and the wind and potential temperature profiles. Compared to the case where the whole domain is homogeneous, increases in z0 and/or TSK in urban areas in the center of domain induce stronger sensible heat fluxes, stronger urban circulations, and weaker inversions at the top of the PBL. (2) When the patch size that characterizes the urban heterogeneity scale is comparable to the size of the whole urban area, the simulated results are strongly dependent on both the heterogeneity scale and the specified surface temperature values. As the patch size decreases, the simulated results become more similar to those over a homogeneous urban surface.

Attribution of runoff change in the alpine basin: a case study of the Heihe Upstream Basin, China

ABSTRACT Quantifying the relative contributions of different factors to runoff change is helpful for basin management, especially in the context of climate change and anthropogenic activities. The effect of snow change on runoff is seldom evaluated. We attribute the runoff change in the Heihe Upstream Basin (HUB), an alpine basin in China, using two approaches: a snowmelt-based water balance model and the Budyko framework. Results from these approaches show good consistency. Precipitation accounts for 58% of the increasing runoff. The contribution of land-cover change seems unremarkable for the HUB as a whole, where land-cover change has a major effect on runoff in each sub-basin, but its positive effect on increasing runoff in sub-basins 1 and 3 is offset by the negative effect in sub-basin 2. Snow change plays an essential role in each sub-basin, with a contribution rate of around 30%. The impact of potential evapotranspiration is almost negligible. EDITOR D. Koutsoyiannis ASSOCIATE EDITOR S. Huang

Statistical interpretation of the daily variation of urban water consumption in Beijing, China

Abstract The efficient planning and design of water networks, as well as the management and strategies of existing water supply systems, require accurate short-term water demand forecasts. In this study, a statistical model for the estimation of daily urban water consumption was developed. The model was applied to analyse and forecast the daily water consumption in the main district of Beijing, China, from 2006 to 2010. The model exhibited good performance with a coefficient of determination, R2, greater than 0.9 in both the calibration and validation periods. The results indicate that: (a) the 7-day moving average temperature is an efficient variable that can be used to depict water-use variation in a year; (b) a daily maximum temperature of 31.1°C and the occurrence of precipitation are two thresholds of water-use behaviour; and (c) the current day’s water consumption has a strong correlation with the consumption of one, two and seven days ago. Editor Z.W. Kundzewicz; Associate editor D. Yang Citation Zhang, D.W., et al., 2013. Statistical interpretation of the daily variation of urban water consumption in Beijing, China. Hydrological Sciences Journal, 59 (1), 181–192.

Understanding the impacts of climate change and human activities on streamflow: a case study of the Soan River basin, Pakistan

Climate change and land use change are the two main factors that can alter the catchment hydrological process. The objective of this study is to evaluate the relative contribution of climate change and land use change to runoff change of the Soan River basin. The Mann-Kendal and the Pettit tests are used to find out the trends and change point in hydroclimatic variables during the period 1983–2012. Two different approaches including the abcd hydrological model and the Budyko framework are then used to quantify the impact of climate change and land use change on streamflow. The results from both methods are consistent and show that annual runoff has significantly decreased with a change point around 1997. The decrease in precipitation and increases in potential evapotranspiration contribute 68% of the detected change while the rest of the detected change is due to land use change. The land use change acquired from Landsat shows that during post-change period, the agriculture has increased in the Soan basin, which is in line with the positive contribution of land use change to runoff decrease. This study concludes that aforementioned methods performed well in quantifying the relative contribution of land use change and climate change to runoff change.

Evapotranspiration estimation considering anthropogenic heat based on remote sensing in urban area

Urbanization influences hydrologic cycle significantly on local, regional even global scale. With urbanization the water resources demand for dense population sharpened, thus it is a great challenge to ensure water supply for some metropolises such as Beijing. Urban area is traditionally considered as the area with lower evapotranspiration (ET) on account of the impervious surface and the lower wind speed. For most remote sensing models, the ET, defined as latent heat in energy budget, is estimated as the difference between net radiation and sensible heat. The sensible heat is generally higher in urban area due to the high surface temperature caused by heat island, therefore the latent heat (i.e. the ET) in urban area is lower than that in other region. We estimated water consumption from 2003 to 2012 in Beijing based on water balance method and found that the annual mean ET in urban area was about 654 mm. However, using Surface Energy Balance System (SEBS) model, the annual mean ET in urban area was only 348 mm. We attributed this inconsistence to the impact of anthropogenic heat and quantified this impact on the basis of the night-light maps. Therefore, a new model SEBS-Urban, coupling SEBS model and anthropogenic heat was developed to estimate the ET in urban area. The ET in urban area of Beijing estimated by SEBS-Urban showed a good agreement with the ET from water balance method. The findings from this study highlighted that anthropogenic heat should be included in the surface energy budget for a highly urbanized area.

Response of vegetation dynamics to climatic variables across a precipitation gradient in the Northeast China Transect

ABSTRACT This study investigated the influence of climatic variables on the spatio-temporal variation of vegetation growth using normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) data and climate data from 2000 to 2013 in the Northeast China Transect. Partial correlation and linear regression methods were applied to quantify the response of the growing season NDVI to climatic variables. Gradient analysis was used to investigate how the response changes across the precipitation gradient over the transect. The results show that, at the spatial scale, NDVI increases with precipitation in grassland, and the spatial sensitivity is 0.001/mm. At the temporal scale, grassland NDVI is less correlated with precipitation in wet areas where precipitation exceeds a threshold of 250 mm. The temporal sensitivity of grassland NDVI to precipitation is 0.0003–0.0006/mm. Positive correlations between NDVI and temperature dominate in forest areas, and forest NDVI is sensitive to temperature by 0.06–0.12/°C.