Assessment of Water Resources Availability in Amu Darya River Basin Using GRACE Data

Water is diminishing in many places of the globe due to human intervention and climate variability. This study was conducted to assess water sustainability in the Amu Darya basin, the largest river catchment of central Asia, using two Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite solutio...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Water
Main Authors: Obaidullah Salehie, Tarmizi bin Ismail, Shamsuddin Shahid, Mohammed Magdy Hamed, Pennan Chinnasamy, Xiaojun Wang
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2022
Subjects:
water availability
sustainability index
equivalent water thickness
GRACE
Amu Darya basin
Hydraulic engineering
TC1-978
Water supply for domestic and industrial purposes
TD201-500
Kendall
Tundra
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.3390/w14040533
https://doaj.org/article/5110fabb8c514ca091f41ef03cadbaf3
Description
Summary:Water is diminishing in many places of the globe due to human intervention and climate variability. This study was conducted to assess water sustainability in the Amu Darya basin, the largest river catchment of central Asia, using two Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite solutions with a spatial resolution of 0.5°. Spatial variability of water sustainability was estimated by integrating reliability, resiliency and vulnerability. In addition, the Modified Mann–Kendall (MMK) test was utilized to detect the significant trends in water availability. Findings show a significant decline in the basin’s water supply, especially after 2010. Water availability was more variable in the east and a small area in the south. Trend analysis revealed higher declination in water availability in the range of −0.04 to −0.08 cm/year in the tundra and warm dry continental climate zones and the delta region of the basin ending in the Aral Sea in the cold desert climate zone. Water resources in the cold semi-arid (steppe) and most parts of the cold desert climate are more sustainable than the rest of the basin. Overall, the results indicate that water resources availability in a large-scale basin with climate diversity could be well assessed using the method used in this study.

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