Some scientific problems facing research on hydrological processes in an inland river basin

Abstract

The challenge is put forward to scientific hydrology by the advancement of water sciences; that is, how should we carry out a multidisciplinary, integrated and cooperative research on hydrological processes in the basin, regional and global scales, in order to better understand the role water plays in the changes of the natural resources and environment of the earth, and to understand the hydrosphere and its interactions with the atmosphere, lithosphere and biosphere. How the changes and transformation of the components of the water cycle and water balance occur in an inland river basin has yet to be understood. We also need to understand what the interactions of water cycle, ecosystems and environment are, and what the responses and feedback of the changes to global change and to human activities are. The water cycle in an inland river basin characterizes the runoff generation region of the mountains upstream, the artificial oases region of water resources exploitation and utilization midstream and the natural desert oases region of runoff dissipating downstream. The mountain hydrological processes are discussed from water cycle, energy balance, water balance and ecological processes. The interactions of water and vegetation are discussed in relation to ecohydrology, and the hydrological processes in the ground water-soil-vegetation layer are discussed from the concept of the critical zone newly put forward abroad. The basic frame is put forward to carry out the field measurement, experiment and studies of hydrological processes in a typical inland river basin.

References

1. Bales R C, Dozier J, Molotch N P, et al. (2004). Mountain Hydrology of theSemi-Arid Western U.S.. Vision Papers, Papers, News andTechnical Reports 2. Brantley S L, White T S, White A T, et al. (2005). Frontiers in Explorationof the Critical Zone: Report of a workshop sponsored by the NationalScience Foundation (NSF). October 24–26, Newark,DE, 30 3. Brasseur G, Ill B M (2002). The newand evolving IGBP. Global Chang News Letter, 50: 1–3 4. Chen R S, Gao Y H, Kang E S, et al. (2006b). A distributed water-heatcoupled (DWHC) model for mountainous watershed of an inland riverbasin (III): model results using the results from MM5 model. Advances in Earth Science, 21(8): 830–837 (in Chinese) 5. Chen R S, Kang E S, Yang J P, et al. (2003a). Simulation of water resourcestransformation in the midstream area of the Hei River basin. Journal of Glaciology and Geocryology, 25(5): 566–573 (in Chinese) 6. Chen R S, Kang E S, Yang J P, et al. (2004a). A distributed runoff modelfor inland river mountainous basin of northwest China. Journal of Desert Research, 24(4): 416–424 (in Chinese) 7. Chen R S, Kang E S, Zhang Z H, et al. (2004b). Estimation of tree transpirationand response of tree conductance to meteorological variables in desert-oasessystem of northwest China. Science in China(Ser. D), 9–20 8. Chen R S, Kang E S, Zhang Z H, et al. (2005). Peak phenomenon of sapflowin late autumn to early winter in Heihe River basin, northwest China. Acta Ecologica Sinica, 25(5): 1221–1228 (in Chinese) 9. Chen R S, Lu S H, Kang E S, et al. (2006a). A distributed water-heatcoupled (DWHC) model for mountainous watershed of an inland riverbasin (I): Model structure and equations. Advances in Earth Science, 21(8): 806–818 (in Chinese) 10. Chen R S, Kang E S, Lu S H, et al. (2006c). A distributed water-heatcoupled (DWHC) model for mountainous watershed of an inland riverbasin (II): model results using the measured data at the meteorological &hydrological stations. Advances in EarthScience, 21(8): 819–829 (in Chinese) 11. Copeland H R A, Kittel T (1996). Potentialimpacts of vegetation change: A regional modeling study. Journal of Geophysical Research, 101 (D3): 7409–7418. doi:10.1029/95JD02676 12. Eltahir E A B, Bras R L (1994). Sensitivityof regional climate to deforestation in the Amazon basin. Advances in Water Resources, 17: 101–115. doi:10.1016/0309-1708(94)90027-2 13. Gordon W S, Famiglietti J S, Fowler N L, et al. (2004). Validation of simulatedrunoff from six terrestrial ecosystem models: Results from VEMAP. Ecological Applications, 14(2): 527–545. doi:10.1890/02-5287 14. GWSP. (2005). The Global Water System Project: Science Framework and ImplementationActivities. Earth System Science Partnership. GWSP Report No.1, ESSP Report No.3 : 10–11. 15. IPCC. (2001). The Scientific Basis. IPCC, ed. Contributionof Working Group 1 to the Third Assessment Report of the IntergovernmentalPanel on Climate Change. Cambridge Cambridge UniversityPress, 881 16. Ji X B, Kang E S, Zhao W Z, et al. (2004). Simulation of evapotranspirationfrom irrigational farmlands in the oases of the Heihe River basin. Journal of Glaciology and Geocryology, 26(6): 713–718 (in Chinese) 17. Jia Y W, Wang H, Ni G H, et al. (2005). Principle and Practice ofBasin Distributed Hydrological Models. Beijing: China Water Conservancyand Power Press, 152–194 (in Chinese) 18. Kang E, Lu L, Xu Z (2007). Vegetation and carbon sequestrationand their relation to water resources in an inland river basin ofNorthwest China. Journal of EnvironmentalManagement, 85: 702–710. doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2006.09.007 19. Landsberg J J, Waring R H (1997). A generalizedmodel of forest productivity using simplified concepts of radiation-useefficiency, carbon balance and partitioning. Forest Ecology and Management, 95: 209–228. doi:10.1016/S0378-1127(97)00026-1 20. Leavesley G H, Markstrom S L, Brewer M S, et al. (1996). The modular modeling system(MMS) – The physical process modeling component of a database-centereddecision support system for water and power management. Water Air and Soil Pollution, 90(1–2): 303–311. doi:10.1007/BF00619290 21. Lu L, Li X, Cheng G D, et al. (2001). Analysis on the landscapestructure of the Heihe River Basin, Northwest China. Acta Ecologica Sinica, 21(8): 1217–1224 (in Chinese) 22. Newman B D, Wilcox B P, Archer S, et al. (2004). The Ecohydrology of Aridand Semiarid Environments: A Scientific Vision. VisionPapers, Papers, News and Technical Reports 23. Njoku E G, Jackson T J, Lakshmi V, et al. (2003). Soil moisture retrievalfrom AMSR-E. IEEE Transactions on Geoscienceand Remote Sensing, 41(2): 215–229. doi:10.1109/TGRS.2002.808243 24. Pavel K, Holger H, Lütkemeier S (2002). Biospheric Aspectsof the Hydrological Cycle. Global ChangNews Letter, 52: 22–23 25. Pielke R A, Avissar R (1990). Influenceof landscape structure on local and regional climate. Landscape Ecology, 4: 133–155. doi:10.1007/BF00132857 26. Rodriguez-Iturbe I (2000). Ecohydrology: A hydrologic perspective of climate-soil-vegetationdynamics. Water Resources Research, 6: 3–9. doi:10.1029/1999WR900210 27. Running S W, Coughlan J C (1988). A generalmodel of forest ecosystem processes for regional applications I. Hydrologicbalance, canopy gas exchange and primary production processes. Ecological Modeling, 42: 125–154. doi:10.1016/0304-3800(88)90112-3 28. Walvoord M A, Phillips F M (2004). Identifyingareas of basin-floor recharge in the Trans-Pecos region and the linkto vegetation. Journal of Hydrology, 292: 59–74. doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2003.12.029 29. Wang H, Chen M J, Qin D Y, et al. (2003). Rational Allocation andBearing Capacity of Water Resources in Northwest China. Zhengzhou: Huanghe Water ConservancyPress, 52–68, 73–76. (in Chinese) 30. Wang S G, Kang E S, Li X (2004). Progress and perspective of distributedhydrological models. Journal of Glaciologyand Geocryology, 26(1): 61–65 (in Chinese) 31. Zhang Y (2000). On China's Water Resources and Sustainable Development. Nanning: Guangxi Science and Technology Publishing House, 30–44 (in Chinese) 32. Zhao W Z, Cheng G D (2001). Ecohydrology– A science for studying the hydrologic mechanisms of ecologicalpatterns and processes. Journal of Glaciologyand Geocryology, 23(4): 150–475 (in Chinese)