Separation of the Impact of Landuse/Landcover Change and Climate Change on Runoff in the Upstream Area of the Yangtze River, China

Landuse/landcover change (LULCC) and climate change (CC) impacts on streamflow in high elevated catchments are very important for sustainable management of water resources and ecological developments. In this research, a statistical technique was used in combination with the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) to the Upstream Area of the Yangtze River (UAYR). Different performance criteria (e.g., R-2, NSE, and PBIAS) were used to evaluate the acceptability of the model simulation results. The model provided satisfactory results for monthly simulations in the calibration (R-2; 0.80, NSE; 0.78 and PBIAS; 22.3%) and the validation period (R-2; 0.89, NSE; 0.75 and PBIAS; 19.1%). Major landuse/landcover transformations from 1990 to 2005 have occurred from low grassland to medium grassland (2%) and wetlands (0.9%), bare land to medium grassland (0.2%), glaciers to wetland (16.8%), and high grassland to medium grassland (5.8%). The results show that there is an increase in average annual runoff at the Zhimenda station in UAYR by 15 mm of, which approximately 98% is caused by climate change and only 2% by landuse/landcover change. The changes evapotranspiration are larger due to climate change as compared to landuse/landcover change, particularly from August to October. Precipitation and temperature have increased during these months. On the contrary, there has been a decrease in evapotranspiration and runoff from October to March which depicts the intra-annual variations in the vegetation in the study area.

Automated summary

The study found that climate change has a more significant impact on streamflow in the catchment area, while landuse/landcover change has a relatively smaller impact. Changes in evapotranspiration due to climate change are larger, especially from August to October.