Influences of recent climate change and human activities on water storage variations in Central Asia

Abstract Terrestrial water storage (TWS) change is an indicator of climate change. Therefore, it is helpful to understand how climate change impacts water systems. In this study, the influence of climate change on TWS in Central Asia over the past decade was analyzed using the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellites and Climatic Research Unit datasets. Results indicate that TWS experienced a decreasing trend in Central Asia from 2003 to 2013 at a rate of −4.44 ± 2.2 mm/a, and that the maximum positive anomaly for TWS (46 mm) occurred in July 2005, while the minimum negative anomaly (−32.5 mm) occurred in March 2008–August 2009. The decreasing trend of TWS in northern Central Asia (−3.86 ± 0.63 mm/a) is mainly attributed to soil moisture storage depletion, which is driven primarily by the increase in evapotranspiration. In the mountainous regions, climate change exerted an influence on TWS by affecting glaciers and snow cover change. However, human activities are now the dominant factor driving the decline of TWS in the Aral Sea region and the northern Tarim River Basin.

[1]  R. Hirsch,et al.  A Nonparametric Trend Test for Seasonal Data With Serial Dependence , 1984 .

[2]  T. Bolch,et al.  Substantial glacier mass loss in the Tien Shan over the past 50 years , 2015 .

[3]  Anny Cazenave,et al.  Interannual variability in water storage over 2003–2008 in the Amazon Basin from GRACE space gravimetry, in situ river level and precipitation data , 2010 .

[4]  Peter Bauer-Gottwein,et al.  Will climate change exacerbate water stress in Central Asia? , 2012, Climatic Change.

[5]  Khaled H. Hamed,et al.  A modified Mann-Kendall trend test for autocorrelated data , 1998 .

[6]  Yaning Chen,et al.  Water and ecological security: dealing with hydroclimatic challenges at the heart of China’s Silk Road , 2016, Environmental Earth Sciences.

[7]  M. Rodell,et al.  Assimilation of GRACE Terrestrial Water Storage Data into a Land Surface Model: Results for the Mississippi River Basin , 2008 .

[8]  G. Komen,et al.  Climate variability , 2008, The Climate System.

[9]  L. Thompson,et al.  Different glacier status with atmospheric circulations in Tibetan Plateau and surroundings , 2012 .

[10]  G. Henebry,et al.  Climate and environmental change in arid Central Asia: impacts, vulnerability, and adaptations. , 2009 .

[11]  James L. Davis,et al.  Land water storage within the Congo Basin inferred from GRACE satellite gravity data , 2006 .

[12]  Matthew Rodell,et al.  Analysis of terrestrial water storage changes from GRACE and GLDAS , 2008 .

[13]  Tim R. McVicar,et al.  Less bluster ahead? Ecohydrological implications of global trends of terrestrial near‐surface wind speeds , 2012 .

[14]  J. Famiglietti,et al.  A GRACE‐based water storage deficit approach for hydrological drought characterization , 2014 .

[15]  F. Landerer,et al.  Accuracy of scaled GRACE terrestrial water storage estimates , 2012 .

[16]  Christian Schwatke,et al.  Inter-annual water storage changes in the Aral Sea from multi-mission satellite altimetry, optical remote sensing, and GRACE satellite gravimetry , 2012 .

[17]  Faisal Hossain,et al.  Inter-annual Water Storage Changes in Asia from GRACE Data , 2010 .

[18]  Martijn Gough.  Climate change , 2009, Canadian Medical Association Journal.

[19]  Frédéric Frappart,et al.  Time variations of land water storage from an inversion of 2 years of GRACE geoids , 2005 .

[20]  S. Swenson,et al.  Accuracy of GRACE mass estimates , 2006 .

[21]  Peng Yang,et al.  An analysis of terrestrial water storage variations from GRACE and GLDAS: The Tianshan Mountains and its adjacent areas, central Asia , 2015 .

[22]  B. Scanlon,et al.  Global analysis of approaches for deriving total water storage changes from GRACE satellites , 2015 .

[23]  Zhi Li,et al.  Progress and prospects of climate change impacts on hydrology in the arid region of northwest China. , 2015, Environmental Research.

[24]  B. Scanlon,et al.  GRACE satellite monitoring of large depletion in water storage in response to the 2011 drought in Texas , 2013 .

[25]  Ruifeng Zhao,et al.  Responses of Surface Runoff to Climate Change and Human Activities in the Arid Region of Central Asia: A Case Study in the Tarim River Basin, China , 2013, Environmental Management.

[26]  Yang Hong,et al.  Drought and flood monitoring for a large karst plateau in Southwest China using extended GRACE data , 2014 .

[27]  J. Qi,et al.  An Overview Of Environmental Issues In Central Asia , 2008 .

[28]  G. Destouni,et al.  Bathymetry‐topography effects on saltwater–fresh groundwater interactions around the shrinking Aral Sea , 2006 .

[29]  T. Bernauer,et al.  Climate change and international water conflict in Central Asia , 2012 .

[30]  Roger Wheate,et al.  Randolph Glacier Inventory [v2.0]: A Dataset of Global Glacier Outlines , 2012 .

[31]  Hui Fang,et al.  Changes in the area of inland lakes in arid regions of central Asia during the past 30 years , 2011, Environmental monitoring and assessment.

[32]  J. Famiglietti,et al.  Satellite-based estimates of groundwater depletion in India , 2009, Nature.

[33]  M. Cheng,et al.  Variations in the Earth's oblateness during the past 28 years , 2004 .

[34]  S. Yirdaw,et al.  GRACE satellite observations of terrestrial moisture changes for drought characterization in the Canadian Prairie , 2008 .

[35]  L. Wen,et al.  Satellite gravity measurement monitoring terrestrial water storage change and drought in the continental United States , 2016, Scientific Reports.

[36]  Zhongbo Yu,et al.  Climate change and water storage variability over an arid endorheic region , 2015 .

[37]  S. Swenson,et al.  Post‐processing removal of correlated errors in GRACE data , 2006 .

[38]  On the use of elevation, altitude, and height in the ecological and climatological literature , 2013, Oecologia.

[39]  Lan-hai Li,et al.  Variation of the proportion of precipitation occurring as snow in the Tian Shan Mountains, China , 2015 .

[40]  B. Scanlon,et al.  Comparison of seasonal terrestrial water storage variations from GRACE with groundwater‐level measurements from the High Plains Aquifer (USA) , 2007 .

[41]  P. Jones,et al.  Updated high‐resolution grids of monthly climatic observations – the CRU TS3.10 Dataset , 2014 .

[42]  Khaled H. Hamed.  Trend detection in hydrologic data: The Mann–Kendall trend test under the scaling hypothesis , 2008 .

[43]  Catherine Ottlé,et al.  Land water storage variability over West Africa estimated by Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and land surface models , 2011 .

[44]  Brian C. Gunter,et al.  Data assimilation of GRACE terrestrial water storage estimates into a regional hydrological model of the Rhine River basin , 2014 .

[45]  M. Bierkens,et al.  Climate Change Will Affect the Asian Water Towers , 2010, Science.

[46]  T. Davie.  Fundamentals of Hydrology , 2002 .

[47]  H. Oberhänsli,et al.  Climate variability during the past 2,000 years and past economic and irrigation activities in the Aral Sea basin , 2007 .

[48]  Heiko Paeth,et al.  Dynamical downscaling of climate change in Central Asia , 2013 .

[49]  Wei Shi,et al.  Long‐term hydrological changes of the Aral Sea observed by satellites , 2014 .

[50]  Matthew Rodell,et al.  Low degree spherical harmonic influences on Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) water storage estimates , 2005 .

[51]  W. Feng,et al.  Evaluation of groundwater depletion in North China using the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) data and ground‐based measurements , 2013 .

[52]  W. Tad Pfeffer,et al.  Recent contributions of glaciers and ice caps to sea level rise , 2012, Nature.

[53]  P. Micklin,et al.  The past, present, and future Aral Sea , 2010 .

[54]  F. Bryan,et al.  Time variability of the Earth's gravity field: Hydrological and oceanic effects and their possible detection using GRACE , 1998 .

[55]  Jeff Dozier,et al.  Climatic and hydrologic changes in the Tien Shan, central Asia , 1997 .

[56]  J. Famiglietti,et al.  GRACE satellite observations reveal the severity of recent water over-consumption in the United States , 2017, Scientific Reports.

[57]  Martin Beniston,et al.  Climate change impacts on glaciers and runoff in Tien Shan (Central Asia) , 2012 .

[58]  Yanping Cao,et al.  GRACE Gravity Satellite Observations of Terrestrial Water Storage Changes for Drought Characterization in the Arid Land of Northwestern China , 2015, Remote. Sens..

[59]  R. Houborg,et al.  Drought indicators based on model‐assimilated Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) terrestrial water storage observations , 2012 .

[60]  S. Seneviratne,et al.  Basin scale estimates of evapotranspiration using GRACE and other observations , 2004 .

[61]  Matthew Rodell,et al.  An analysis of terrestrial water storage variations in Illinois with implications for the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) , 2001 .

[62]  S. Seneviratne,et al.  Seasonal Variations in Terrestrial Water Storage for Major Midlatitude River Basins , 2006 .

[63]  Koji Matsuo,et al.  Time-variable ice loss in Asian high mountains from satellite gravimetry , 2010 .

[64]  Yaning Chen,et al.  Potential impacts of climate change on vegetation dynamics in Central Asia , 2015 .

[65]  Jonathan M. Adams,et al.  Impacts of Climate and Land-cover Changes in Arid Lands of Central Asia , 2005 .

[66]  P. Whetton,et al.  The Potential Impacts of Climate Change , 2000 .