Response of streamflow to climate variability in the source region of Jhelum River Basin in Kashmir valley, India

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Response of streamflow to climate variability in the source region of Jhelum River Basin in Kashmir valley, India Mifta ul Shafiq1 · Ifra Ashraf2 · Zahoor ul Islam1 · Pervez Ahmed1   · A. P. Dimri3 Received: 27 January 2020 / Accepted: 13 July 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020

Abstract Successful management of the water resources directly depends on our understanding of the heterogeneity of changing climate and consequent response of annual and seasonal streamflows in different climatic regions. This study was undertaken to quantify the spatial and temporal variability of different climatic variables and their subsequent impacts on streamflows of river Jhelum and its tributaries during last more than three decades. Mann– Kendall trend statistic and Sen’s slope estimator test were used for assessing the trends and variability in climatic and streamflow variables. Data obtained from 11 hydrometric and 6 meteorological stations for different time intervals were used for analysis. The results pointed toward various significant trends in both hydrological and meteorological stations. Kashmir Himalayas witnessed rise in mean maximum temperature (+ 0.05  °C/year) and mean minimum temperature (+ 0.01  °C/year) with substantial reduction in precipitation (− 4.2 mm/year) from 1980 to 2015. Analysis of the streamflow trends revealed significant decreasing trends in all the hydrometric stations with the highest decrease in spring and summer seasons. Furthermore, the correlation analysis revealed a significant negative correlation between increase in temperature and streamflow, while strong positive correlation was realized with precipitation at both annual and seasonal scales. Keywords  Streamflow · Climate variability · Jhelum River Basin · Kashmir valley · Precipitation

Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (https​://doi.org/10.1007/s1106​ 9-020-04183​-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Pervez Ahmed [email protected] 1

Climate and Cryosphere Group, Department of Geography and Regional Development, University of Kashmir, Srinagar 190006, India

2

College of Agricultural Engineering, Sher-E-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology, Shalimar, Srinagar, India

3

School of Environmental Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India



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Natural Hazards

1 Introduction Changes in the climatic variables, especially precipitation and temperature, are the key drivers epitomizing the variations in hydrological responses of a watershed. Climate variability and anthropogenic activities like land use change together make for a pivotal role in shaping variations in the streamflow regime (Quilbé et al. 2008). The persistent variability in the climate of the Earth is being noticed remarkably at a faster rate since the last century. The increase in average temperature at both local and global scales causes discernible variations in the hydrological cycle in the varied regions, particularly dominated with snow