Development of a comprehensive framework for quantifying the collective and individual influence of climate change and human activities on hydrological regimes

• Published in: Ecological indicators Vol. 166; p. 112487
• Main Authors: Huang, Yinghou, Zhang, Ke, Chao, Lijun, Shi, Wuzhi, Huang, Binbin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.09.2024; Elsevier
• Subjects: Climate change; Ganjiang River Basin; Human activities; Hydrological regime alterations; SWAT model; Human activities; SWAT model; Climate change; Hydrological regime alterations; Ganjiang River Basin
• ISSN: 1470-160X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2024.112487

•Framework to quantify collective and individual impacts of climate change and human activities on hydrological regimes.•Climate change and human activities have opposite effects on minimum flow and pulse indicators in the Ganjiang River bBasin.•Climate change and human activities exhibit a substantial synergistic effect on multiple aspects of hydrological regimes. Previous research rarely identified the synergistic effects of climate change and human activities on hydrological regimes, thus leading to an incomplete attribution of hydrological regime changes. To address this issue, this paper presents a complete approach for accurately quantifying these impacts. The framework integrates various methodologies, including the runoff abrupt change point judgment method for distinguishing pre- and post-impact periods, The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) is used to isolate runoff processes influenced solely by climate change, the linear separation method for identifying runoff processes affected solely by human activities, and the Indicator of Hydrologic Alteration (IHA) for quantifying changes in hydrological regimes. Application of this framework to the Ganjiang River Basin (GRB) unveils significant alterations in hydrological regimes. This has resulted in a significant decline in aquatic organism species compared to the prior-impact period levels. Notably, climate change and human activities exert opposing effects on minimum flow indicators and flow pulse indicators in the GRB. Moreover, these factors exhibit a substantial synergistic effect on numerous indicators, resulting in hydrological regimes combined influenced by climate change and human activities being considerably different with the cumulative impact on hydrological regimes solely influenced by climate change and those solely influenced by human activities. Consequently, in future water management, it is crucial to recognize the positive role of prudent human activities in mitigating the adverse impacts of climate change.