Variations in hydrological variables using distributed hydrological model in permafrost environment

The Yangtze River Source Region (YaRSR) is located in the third polar region, the most threatened zone by global warming after the Arctic. Permafrost covers eighty percent of the total area of YaRSR, while the rest is seasonally frozen ground. Due to a significant rise in air temperature, degradatio...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ecological Indicators
Main Authors: Ahmed, Naveed, Wang, Genxu, Booij, Martijn J., Marhaento, Hero, Pordhan, Foyez Ahmed, Ali, Shahid, Munir, Sarfraz, Hashmi, Muhammad Zia-ur-Rehman
Format: Report
Language:English
Published: ELSEVIER 2022
Subjects:
Permafrost hydrology
SWAT model
Qinghai Tibet
Third Polar Region
Yangtze River
China
RIVER SOURCE REGION
CLIMATE-CHANGE
YANGTZE-RIVER
ACTIVE LAYER
TIBETAN PLATEAU
IMPACTS
BASIN
WATER
STREAMFLOW
SNOW
Biodiversity & Conservation
Environmental Sciences & Ecology
Biodiversity Conservation
Environmental Sciences
Arctic
Climate change
Global warming
permafrost
Online Access:http://ir.imde.ac.cn/handle/131551/56974
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2022.109609
Description
Summary:The Yangtze River Source Region (YaRSR) is located in the third polar region, the most threatened zone by global warming after the Arctic. Permafrost covers eighty percent of the total area of YaRSR, while the rest is seasonally frozen ground. Due to a significant rise in air temperature, degradation of the permafrost could occur. Permafrost coverage in a river basin greatly controls its hydrology. This study focuses on hydrological modeling in this permafrost environment using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). The SWAT model was calibrated (1985-2000) and validated (2001-2015) on a daily time step. The results were also compared on a monthly time scale. An impermeable layer was introduced within the SWAT model to represent the permafrost conditions. The streamflow is strongly dependent on the seasonal variation of precipitation and temperature, and the rising limb of the hydrograph shows the melting of snow, the contribution of soil water, and thawing of permafrost during the spring-summer season. The permafrost layer well restricted the deep percolation of water. During the spring season, streamflow mainly consists of surface runoff because of the frozen soils. Permafrost and frozen ground thawing lead to an increase in the contribution of groundwater flow to streamflow. Ultimately, the frozen ground depletes as the temperature gets close to the freezing point. This study also describes the SWAT model appli-cation to better analyze and understand the hydrology of the permafrost/frozen ground with limited data availability.

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