Hydrologic response to climate change and human activities in a subtropical coastal watershed of southeast China
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Hydrologic response to climate change and human activities in a subtropical coastal watershed of southeast China Jinliang Huang • Zhenyu Zhang • Yuan Feng Huasheng Hong
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Received: 4 August 2012 / Accepted: 23 February 2013 / Published online: 7 March 2013 Ó Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013
Abstract It is essential to investigate hydrologic responses to climate change and human activities across different physiographic regions so as to formulate sound strategies for water resource management. Mann–Kendall, wavelet and geospatial analyses were coupled in this study, associated with ENSO indicators, flashiness index and baseflow index, in order to explore the hydrologic sensitivity to climate change and human activities in the Jiulong River Basin (JRB), a subtropical coastal watershed of southeast China. The results showed that the average annual precipitation presented an increasing trend (Z = 2.263, p = 0.024) and that this tendency has become weaker from estuary to inland in the JRB over the past 50 years. The annual frequency of rainstorm events increased from 3.4 to 5.2 days in the estuary and from 5.1 to 5.6 days in the West River, whereas it decreased from 6.0 to 5.5 days in the North River from 1954 to 2010. The 10-year average streamflow during 2001–2010 in the North River and West River decreased by 9.2 and 6.7 %, respectively, compared to the average annual streamflow during 1967–2000. Annual fluctuations were the most representative signals in streamflow variability for the North River and West River over the period 1967–2010. Human activities including dam construction, land change and socioeconomic development posed increasing influences on hydrologic conditions in the JRB. Seasonal J. Huang (&) Z. Zhang H. Hong Coastal and Ocean Management Institute, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China e-mail: [email protected] J. Huang Z. Zhang Y. Feng H. Hong Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Coastal Ecology and Environmental Studies, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China
variability of streamflow and sediment discharge changed significantly between the two periods divided by the jumping point (1992), identified when dams were constructed extensively in the North River and West River. This research provided important insights into the hydrologic consequences of climate change and human activities in a subtropical coastal watershed of southeast China. Keywords Climate variability Precipitation Streamflow Human activities Jiulong River Basin
Introduction Change in streamflow is the result of complex interactions between climate change and human activities (e.g., occurrence of extreme weather events, dam construction) (Tu 2009; Liu and Cui 2011; Costigan and Daniels 2012). Climate change combined with human activities leads to remarkable changes in the hydrological recycling pattern, which in turn leads to changes in the hydrological processes of watersheds, and these have caused a series of water resource problems all over the world (Zalewski 2000; Zhang et al. 2001
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