Characterizing Uncertainty of Hydro-climatic Variables for Water Management in the Yellow River Basin: Learning from the Past

摘要

Unpredictable variability such as caused by climate change,and imperfect knowledge of hydrological processes introduce uncertainty in water resources planning and management.As a result,analysing and studying the variability and uncertainty of hydro-climatic variables help to better understand the variations of these processes and provide information to water planning and management.The paper focuses on characterizing the variability and uncertainty of climatic and hydrological variables such as temperature,precipitation,and runoff in the Yellow River Basin.Historical information and data is used to analyse the trend of these variables,and the variability and uncertainty of these hydro-climatic processes.Two statistical approaches,including the bootstrap method and the maximum likelihood (MLE) method,are used to estimate uncertainties given historical data.We apply the analysis to both seasonal and annual data,and to various sub-regions of the Yellow River Basin.