Spatiotemporal variation and driving factors of water yield services on the Qingzang Plateau

Abstract

Water resources are a basic need for social sustainable development and human existence. As an important national strategy for water resources security, spatial and temporal patterns and driving mechanisms of water yield ecosystem services on the Qingzang Plateau (QP) are critical for water resources management, optimal water allocation and the improvement of ecological water protection efficiency. However, only a few relevant studies are currently available. In this study, we simulated the water yield (WY) of the QP over 34 years, from 1982 to 2015, using the InVEST model and analyzed the spatiotemporal dynamic relationships between WY and climate change as well as between WY and vegetation change, using geographically weighted regression (GWR) models. The results showed that: 1) from 1982 to 2015, the WY of the QP increased at an average rate of 3.8 mm/yr; 2) WY presented a reduced spatial pattern from southeast to northwest; and 3) the WY driving factors have individual and spatial differences. In terms of the area percentage in promoting WY when analyzing each driving factor, precipitation (99.8%) and air pressure (53.3%) played the major roles in promoting WY, while temperature (71.9%), wind speed (57.2%), net primary productivity (87.2%), radiation (68.3%) and lake (87.7%) played negative roles. The areas where WY are dominated by temperature are the largest (41.1%), and followed by areas dominated by pressure (19.7%) and precipitation (18.5%). The results of this study provide scientific support for formulating regional water resources policy, social and economic development planning and other macro decisions for the QP.

Keywords

Qingzang Plateau / Water yield / GWR models

Declaration of Competing Interest

No conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by The Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research (Grant No. 2019QZKK0405), the Chinese Academy of Sciences through the Strategic Pilot Science and Technology Special Project (Category A) (Grant No. XDA2002040201), and the Shaanxi Provincial Key Laboratory of Land Management Open Fund (Grant No. 2018-ZD01).

References

[1] Badgley, G., Fisher, J., Jiménez, C., Tu, K., Vinukollu, R., 2015. On uncertainty in global terrestrial evapotranspiration estimates from choice of input forcing datasets. J. Hydromet. 16 (4), 1449-1455.

[2] Boithias, L., Acuña, V., Vergoñós, L., Ziv, G., Marcé, R., Sabater, S., 2014. Assessment of the water supply: Demand ratios in a Mediterranean basin under different global change scenarios and mitigation alternatives. Sci. Total Environ. 470-471, 567-577.

[3] Canadell, J., Jackson, R., Ehleringer, J., Mooney, H., Sala, O., Schulze, E., 1996. Maximum rooting depth of vegetation types at the global scale. Oecologia 108 (4), 583-595.

[4] Chen, Q., Mei, K., Dahlgren, R., Wang, T., Gong, J., Zhang, M., 2016. Impacts of land use and population density on seasonal surface water quality using a modified geographically weighted regression. Sci. Total Environ. 572, 450-466.

[5] Costanza, R., d’Arge, R., Groot, R., Farber, S., Grasso, M., Hannon, B., Limburg, K., Naeem, S., O’Neill, R., Paruelo, J., Raskin, R., Sutton, P., Belt, M., 1998. The value of the world’s ecosystem services and natural capital. Ecol. Econ. 25 (1), 3-15.

[6] Cui, L., Shi, J., 2010. Temporal and spatial response of vegetation NDVI to temperature and precipitation in eastern China. J. Geog. Sci. 20 (2), 163-176.

[7] Di, Y., Zhang, Y., Zeng, H., Tang, Z., 2019. Effects of changed Asian water tower on Qinghai-Tibetan plateau ecosystem: A review. Bull. Chin. Acad. 34 (11), 1322-1331. (in Chinese)

[8] Dirmeyer, P., Jin, Y., Singh, B., Yan, X., 2013. Trends in land-atmosphere interactions from CMIP 5 simulations. J. Hydromet. 14 (3), 829-849.

[9] Dong, S., Xue, X., Xu, M., You, J., Peng, F., 2013. Influence of climate change on water environment in the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau. Arid Land Geogr. 36 (5), 841-853. (in Chinese)

[10] Dou, P., Zuo, S., Ren, Y., Dai, S., Yun, G., 2019. The impacts of climate and land use/land cover changes on water yield service in Ningbo region. Acta Sci. Circum. 39 (7), 2398-2409. (in Chinese)

[11] Duan, K., Yao, T., Wang, N., Tian, L., Xu, B., 2008. The difference in precipitation variability between the North and South Qinghai-Tibetan plateaus. J. Glaciol. Geocryol. 5, 726-732. (in Chinese)

[12] Fan, K., Zhang, Q., Sun, P., Song, C., Yu, H., Zhu, X., Shen, Z., 2020. Effect of soil moisture variation on land surface air temperature over the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau. Acta Geogr. Sin. 75 (1), 82-97. (in Chinese)

[13] Gao, J., Li, F., Gao, H., Zhou, C., Zhang, X., 2017. The impact of land-use change on water-related ecosystem services: A study of the Guishui River Basin, Beijing, China. J. Clean. Prod. 163, S148-S155.

[14] Ge, J., Wu, N., He, F., Fang, X., Feng, C., 2015. Service and value of water yield of ecosystem in upper reaches of Xin’an River. J. Water Resourc. Water Eng. 26 (2), 90-96. (in Chinese)

[15] Gu, Z., Jin, X., Shen, C., Jin, Z., Zhou, Y., 2018. Variation and influence factors of water conservation service function in Jiangsu province from 2000 to 2015. Res. Environ. in the Yangtze Basin. 27 (11), 2453-2462. (in Chinese)

[16] Han, Y., Guo, X., Jiang, Y., Rao, L., Sun, K., Li, J., Wang, L., 2019. Cultivated land landscape ecological security: Influencing factors and spatial differences in the hilly region of South China. Acta Ecol. Sin. 39 (17), 6522-6533. (in Chinese)

[17] Hou, W., Gao, J., 2019. Simulating runoffgeneration and its spatial correlation with environmental factors in Sancha River Basin: The southern source of the Wujiang River. J. Geogr. Sci. 29 (3), 432-448.

[18] Hutchinson, M., 1998. Interpolation of rainfall data with thin plate smoothing splines —Part I: Two dimensional smoothing of data with short range correlation. J. Geog. Inf. Decis. Anal. 2, 153-167.

[19] Jones, G., 1969. Pettitt v. Pettitt: A post-script. Camb. Law J. 27 (2), 196-198.

[20] Karnieli, A., Ben-Asher, J., 1993. A daily runoffsimulation in semi-arid watersheds based on soil water deficit calculations. J. Hydrol. 149 (1-4), 9-25.

[21] Lang, Y., Song, W., Zhang, Y., 2017. Responses of the water-yield ecosystem service to climate and land use change in Sancha River Basin, China. Phys. Chem. Earth, Parts A/B/C. 101, 102-111.

[22] Li, L., Li, X., Xiao, R., Shen, H., 2019. The heterogeneity of climate change and its genesis in the Northeastern Qinghai-Tibetan plateau. J. Nat. Resour. 34 (7), 1496-1505. (in Chinese)

[23] Lu, N., Sun, G., Feng, X., Fu, B., 2013. Water yield responses to climate change and variability across the North-South Transect of Eastern China (NSTEC). J. Hydrol. 481, 96-105.

[24] Lu, F., Lu, H., 2019. A high-resolution grid dataset of air temperature and precipitation for Qinling-Daba Mountains in central China and its implications for regional climate. Acta Geogr. Sin. 74 (5), 875-888. (in Chinese)

[25] Pan, T., Wu, S., Dai, E., Liu, Y., 2013. Spatiotemporal variation of water source supply service in Three Rivers Source Area of China based on InVEST model. Chinese J. Appl. Ecol. 24 (1), 183-189. (in Chinese)

[26] Piao, S., Ciais, P., Huang, Y., Shen, Z., Peng, S., Li, J., Zhou, L., Liu, H., Ma, Y., Ding, Y., Friedlingstein, P., Liu, C., Tan, K., Yu, Y., Zhang, T., Fang, J., 2010. The impacts of climate change on water resources and agriculture in China. Nature 467, 43-51.

[27] Qin, D., Chen, Y., Li, X., 2005. Climate and environmental evolution in China (part I). Science Press, Beijing.

[28] Ronald, C., Francisco, E., Daniel, M., Amr, A., 2014. Analyzing trade-offs, synergies, and drivers among timber production, carbon sequestration, and water yield in pinus elliotii forests in southeastern USA. Forests 5 (6), 1409-1431.

[29] Su, C., Wang, Y., 2018. Evolution of ecosystem services and its driving factors in the upper reaches of the Fenhe River watershed, China. Acta Ecol. Sin. 38 (22), 7886-7898. (in Chinese)

[30] Sui, X., Wu, W., Zhou, S., Wang, J., Li, Z., 2015. Drive pattern on the spatial heterogeneity of residential land price in urban district: A comparison of spatial expansion method and GWR model. Acta Ecolo. Sin. 35 (6), 683-689. (in Chinese)

[31] Sun, H., Zheng, D., Yao, T., Zhang, Y., 2012. Protection and construction of the national ecological security shelter zone on Qinghai-Tibetan plateau. Acta Geogr. Sin. 67 (1), 3-12. (in Chinese)

[32] Sun, Q., Yu, K., Li, Z., Li, P., Zhang, X., Gong, J., 2018. The trends of streamflow and sediment and their driving factors in the middle reaches of the Yellow River. Acta Geogr. Sin. 73 (5), 945-956. (in Chinese)

[33] Sun, X., Guo, H., Lian, L., Liu, F., Li, B., 2017. The spatial pattern of water yield and its driving factors in Nansi lake basin. J. Nat. Resour. 32 (4), 669-679. (in Chinese)

[34] Tan, W., 2007. The basic theory and application of geographical weighted regression. PhD. thesis, Tongji University, Shanghai. (in Chinese)

[35] Terrado, M., Acuña, V., Ennaanay, D., Tallis, H., Sabater, S., 2014. Impact of climate extremes on hydrological ecosystem services in a heavily humanized Mediterranean basin. Ecol. Indicat. 37, 199-209.

[36] Tian, Y., Yu, C., Zha, X., Gao, X., Dai, E., 2019. Hydrochemical characteristics and controlling factors of natural water in the border areas of the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau. J. Geog. Sci. 29 (11), 1876-1894.

[37] Tu, M., Liu, Z., He, C., Fang, Z., Lu, W., 2019. The relationships between urban landscape patterns and fine particulate pollution in China: A multiscale investigation using a geographically weighted regression model. J. Cleaner Prod. 237, 117744.

[38] Wang, Y., Zhao, J., Fu, J., Wei, W., 2018. Quantitative assessment of water conservation function and spatial pattern in Shiyang River basin. Acta Ecol. Sin. 38 (13), 4637-4648. (in Chinese)

[39] Wu, J., Li, Y., Huang, L., Lu, Z., Yu, D., Zhou, L., Dai, L., 2017. Spatiotemporal variation of water yield and its driving factors in Northeast China. Chinese J. Ecol. 36 (11), 3216-3223. (in Chinese)

[40] Xiao, Y., Xiao, Q., Ouyang, Z., Maomao, Q., 2015. Assessing changes in water flow regulation in Chongqing region, China. Environ. Monit. Assess. 187 (6), 362.

[41] Xie, H., Liu, L., Li, B., Zhang, X., 2006. Spatial autocorrelation analysis of multi-scale land-use changes: A case study in Ongniud Banner, Inner Mongolia. Acta Geogr. Sin. 61 (4), 389-400. (in Chinese)

[42] Xu, X., Dong, L., Zhao, Y., Wang, Y., 2019. Effect of the Asian Water Tower over the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau and the characteristics of atmospheric water circulation. Chinese Sci. Bull. 64 (27), 2830-2841. (in Chinese)

[43] Yang, C., Shen, W., Lin, N., 2014. Climate change and its regional differences over the Tibet Plateau. Arid Land Geogr. 37 (2), 90-98. (in Chinese)

[44] Yang, Q., Liu, Q., Yin, S., Zhang, J., Yang, X., Gao, Y., 2019. Vulnerability and influencing factors of rural transportation environment in Qinling-Daba mountainous areas: A case study of Luonan county in Shaanxi province. Acta Geogr. Sin. 74 (6), 1236-1251. (in Chinese)

[45] Yao, T., Qin, D., Shen, Y., Zhao, L., Wang, N., Lu, A., 2013. Cryospheric changes and their impacts on regional water cycle and ecological conditions in the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau. Chinese J. Nat. 35 (3), 179-186. (in Chinese)

[46] Yin, L., Wang, X., Zhang, K., Xiao, F., Cheng, C., Zhang, X., 2019. Trade-offs and synergy between ecosystem services in National Barrier Zone. Geog. Res. 38 (9), 2162-2172.

[47] Yin, Y., Wu, S., Du, Z., Yang, Q., 2008. Radiation calibration of FAO 56 Penman-Monteith model to estimate reference crop evapotranspiration in China. Agric. Water Manage. 95 (1), 77-84.

[48] Yin, Y., Wu, S., Li, H., Zhao, D., Yang, X., Zhou, J., 2013. Water conservation function changes in ecological reserves on the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau under SRES scenarios. Resour. Sci. 35 (10), 81-88. (in Chinese)

[49] Yu, B., Lv, C., Lv, T., Yang, A., Liu, C., 2009. Regional differentiation of vegetation change in the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau. Prog. Geogr. 28 (3), 391-397. (in Chinese)

[50] Zhang, C., Li, W., Zhang, B., Liu, M., 2012. Water yield of Xitiaoxi River Basin based on InVEST Modeling. J. Res. Ecol. 3 (1), 50-54.

[51] Zhang, G., Luo, W., Chen, W., Zheng, G., 2019. A robust but variable lake expansion on the Tibetan Plateau. Sci. Bull. 64 (18), 1306-1309.

[52] Zhang, G., Yao, T., Xie, H., Zhang, K., Zhu, F., 2014. Lakes’ state and abundance across the Tibetan Plateau. Sci. Bull. 59 (24), 3010-3021.

[53] Zhang, K., Lv, Y., Fu, B., Yin, L., Yu, D., 2020. The effects of vegetation coverage changes on ecosystem service and their threshold in the Loess Plateau. Acta Geogr. Sin. 75 (5), 949-960. (in Chinese)

[54] Zhang, G., 2019. The lakes larger than 1km² in Tibetan Plateau (V2.0) (1970s-2018). National Tibetan Plateau Data Center doi: 10.11888/Hydro.tpdc.270303.

[55] Zhang, L., Dawes, W., Walker, G., 2001. Response of mean annual evapotranspiration to vegetation changes at catchment scale. Water Resour. Res. 37 (3), 701-708.

[56] Zhao, Y., Zhou, J., Xiang, J., Huang, M., Feng, W., Zhu, G., Wei, W., Wang, J., 2019. Identification of water yield drivers in the upstream of Shiyang River based on InVEST model. Chinese J. Ecol. 38 (12), 3789-3799. (in Chinese)

[57] Zhao, Z., Xu, Z., Hou, J., 2018. Application of geographical weighted regressionin population spatial distribution research. Remote Sens. Inf. 33 (4), 128-134. (in Chinese)

[58] Zhou, W., Gang, C., Li, J., Zhang, C., Mu, S., Sun, Z., 2014. Spatial-temporal dynamics of grassland coverage and its response to climate change in China during 1982-2010. Acta Geogr. Sin. 69 (1), 15-30. (in Chinese)

[59] Zhu, L., Zhang, G., Yang, R., Liu, C., Yang, K., Qiao, B, Han, B., 2019. Lake variations on Qinghai-Tibetan plateau of recent 40 years and future changing tendency. Bull. Chin. Acad. 34 (11), 1254-1263. (in Chinese)