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Assessment of Contributions of Climatic Variation and Human Activities to Streamflow Changes in the Lancang River, China

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  • Jian Tang
  • Xin-An Yin
  • Pan Yang
  • ZhiFeng Yang

Abstract

The construction and operation of hydropower reservoirs on the Lancang River have drawn worldwide concern, because streamflow changes have occurred in this river since the introduction of dams. To address these concerns, it is necessary to quantitatively assess relative contributions of climatic variations and human activities to these changes. In this research, Mann-Kendall method was used to assess the trends in hydro-climatic data. The streamflow data were divided into a reference period (1956–1985) and a change period (1986–2008) based on hydropower reservoir construction timeline. The Back-Propagation Artificial Neural Network (BP-ANN) model was used to reconstruct natural streamflow. The contributions of climatic variations and human activities were investigated at the yearly, seasonal and monthly time scales. The results indicate that human activities exerted a slightly greater impact on flow changes than did climatic variations, at the yearly time scale (54.6 and 45.4 %, respectively). At the seasonal time scale, climatic variations made a greater contribution (65.8 %) during the wet season, while the contribution of human activities became the dominant factor during the dry season (85.3 %). At the monthly time scale, the contribution of climatic variations in January, June, August, and September was greater than that of human activities, while in the remaining eight months, human activities exerted a greater contribution than did climatic variation. The relative contributions of human activities and climatic variations (RCs) were also determined during the single- and cascade-dam periods; these did not always increase at the three time scales when dam system shifted from single-dam to cascade-dam. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Suggested Citation

  • Jian Tang & Xin-An Yin & Pan Yang & ZhiFeng Yang, 2014. "Assessment of Contributions of Climatic Variation and Human Activities to Streamflow Changes in the Lancang River, China," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 28(10), pages 2953-2966, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:waterr:v:28:y:2014:i:10:p:2953-2966
    DOI: 10.1007/s11269-014-0648-5
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    2. Wei Liang & Dan Bai & Zhao Jin & Yuchi You & Jiaxing Li & Yuting Yang, 2015. "A Study on the Streamflow Change and its Relationship with Climate Change and Ecological Restoration Measures in a Sediment Concentrated Region in the Loess Plateau, China," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 29(11), pages 4045-4060, September.

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