Climate change and its impact on water resources in Yixun River basin

In recent decades,the global climate has changed markedly characterized by the increasing temperature,and the water resources and the environment are all influenced significantly.Haihe River basin is one of the most intense river basins in water resources in China,and its water resources could be very sensitive to the climate change.In this paper,considering it is less affected by human activities,the Yixun River basin is used as the research region.Based on the previous studies in the context of future climate change in Haihe River,a total of twenty climate change scenarios are constructed.The Spatial Averaging Watershed Hydrological Model is used to simulate hydrological cycling under different climatic change scenarios in the Yixun River basin.The model is characterized as a watershed-scale distributed hydrological model.Climate change impacts on water resources in the basin are analyzed.Results show that the increase in runoff lost to evaporation could be as high 3.8 mm with a temperature rise of 1℃.The increase in precipitation could lead to the rise in both evaporation and runoff.Among those two,50% of the precipitation rise would be lost to the evaporation process,and the increase in runoff could be as high as 30% as the result.Both runoff and evaporation could be more sensitive to higher temperature and extreme precipitation.The runoff condition in the Yixun River basin could be further deteriorating under a changing climate that is characterized by rising in temperature and the uncertainty in precipitation trends.