Irrigation, damming, and streamflow fluctuations of the Yellow River

Yin Zun, Ottle Catherine, Ciais Philippe, Zhou Feng, Wang Xuhui, Jan Polcher, Dumas Patrice, Peng Shushi, Li Laurent, Zhou Xudong, Bo Yan, Xi Yi, Piao Shilong. 2021. Irrigation, damming, and streamflow fluctuations of the Yellow River. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 25 (3) : 1133-1150.

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-1133-2021

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Quartile : Q1, Sujet : GEOSCIENCES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY / Quartile : Q1, Sujet : WATER RESOURCES

Résumé : The streamflow of the Yellow River (YR) is strongly affected by human activities like irrigation and dam operation. Many attribution studies have focused on the long-term trends of streamflows, yet the contributions of these anthropogenic factors to streamflow fluctuations have not been well quantified with fully mechanistic mod- els. This study aims to (1) demonstrate whether the mech- anistic global land surface model ORCHIDEE (ORganiz- ing Carbon and Hydrology in Dynamic EcosystEms) is able to simulate the streamflows of this complex rivers with hu- man activities using a generic parameterization for human activities and (2) preliminarily quantify the roles of irriga- tion and dam operation in monthly streamflow fluctuations of the YR from 1982 to 2014 with a newly developed ir- rigation module and an offline dam operation model. Val- idations with observed streamflows near the outlet of the YR demonstrated that model performances improved notably with incrementally considering irrigation (mean square er- ror (MSE) decreased by 56.9 %) and dam operation (MSE decreased by another 30.5 %). Irrigation withdrawals were found to substantially reduce the river streamflows by ap- proximately 242.8 ± 27.8 × 108 m3 yr−1 in line with inde- pendent census data (231.4 ± 31.6 × 108 m3 yr−1). Dam op- eration does not change the mean streamflows in our model, but it impacts streamflow seasonality, more than the seasonal change of precipitation. By only considering generic opera- tion schemes, our dam model is able to reproduce the water storage changes of the two large reservoirs, LongYangXia and LiuJiaXia (correlation coefficient of ∼ 0.9). Moreover, other commonly neglected factors, such as the large opera- tion contribution from multiple medium/small reservoirs, the dominance of large irrigation districts for streamflows (e.g., the Hetao Plateau), and special management policies dur- ing extreme years, are highlighted in this study. Related pro- cesses should be integrated into models to better project fu- ture YR water resources under climate change and optimize adaption strategies.

Mots-clés Agrovoc : modèle de simulation, irrigation, facteur anthropogène, hydrologie, adaptation aux changements climatiques, changement climatique, cycle du carbone, barrage, utilisation des terres, modèle mathématique, stockage