Aridification trend in the Zhangweinan River Basin,North China

摘要

North China, the political and cultural center of China, is a region with dense population and developed economics. A series of droughts have occurred in recent decades, including the decrease of precipitation and streamflow, subsidence of groundwater table, and even occurrence of zero flow in rivers. In order to identify the impact of climate change and human activities on the aridification trend in North China, the meteorological and hydrological changes over the past 50 years between the headwater catchment and downstream of the Zhangweinan River basin was compared in this study. Results show that, as a natural process, maximum air temperature has significantly increased, precipitation slightly decreased and runoff significantly decreased over the past 50 years. Human activities have further aggravated these changes, and have greatly influenced all other variables (e.g., mean and minimum air temperature, mean and minimum relative humidity). Available measures to cope with the aridification trend in North China should be taken. Further study will be carried out to integrate modeling of climatic, hydrological systems (including groundwater system) and human activities, so that their interaction can be investigated.