title: Attribution of hydrological change in Heihe River Basin to climate and land use change in the past three decades.
abstract: The contributions of climate and land use change (LUCC) to hydrological change in Heihe River Basin (HRB), Northwest China were quantified using detailed climatic, land use and hydrological data, along with the process-based SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) hydrological model. The results showed that for the 1980s, the changes in the basin hydrological change were due more to LUCC (74.5%) than to climate change (21.3%). While LUCC accounted for 60.7% of the changes in the basin hydrological change in the 1990s, climate change explained 57.3% of that change. For the 2000s, climate change contributed 57.7% to hydrological change in the HRB and LUCC contributed to the remaining 42.0%. Spatially, climate had the largest effect on the hydrology in the upstream region of HRB, contributing 55.8%, 61.0% and 92.7% in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, respectively. LUCC had the largest effect on the hydrology in the middle-stream region of HRB, contributing 92.3%, 79.4% and 92.8% in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, respectively. Interestingly, the contribution of LUCC to hydrological change in the upstream, middle-stream and downstream regions and the entire HRB declined continually over the past 30 years. This was the complete reverse (a sharp increase) of the contribution of climate change to hydrological change in HRB.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.|University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.
authors.forename: Kaisheng
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.|Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), 01301 Vantaa, Finland.
authors.forename: Fulu
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Tao
authors.affiliation: Department of Agricultural Engineering, School of Technology, Njala University, Sierra Leone.
authors.forename: Juana P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Moiwo
authors.affiliation: Institute of Geographical Sciences, Hebei Academy of Sciences, Shijiazhuang 050011, China.
authors.forename: Dengpan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Xiao