A distributed modeling approach to water balance implications from changing land cover dynamics in permafrost environments

Abstract

There is 78 % permafrost and seasonal frozen soil in the Yangtze River’s Source Region (SRYR), which is situated in the middle of the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau. Three distinct scenarios were developed in the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) to model the effects of land cover change (LCC) on various water balance components. Discharge and percolation of groundwater have decreased by mid-December. This demonstrates the seasonal contributions of subsurface water, which diminish when soil freezes. During winter, when surface water inputs are low, groundwater storage becomes even more critical to ensure water supply due to this periodic trend. An impermeable layer underneath the active layer thickness decreases GWQ and PERC in LCC + permafrost scenario. The water transport and storage phase reached a critical point in August when precipitation, permafrost thawing, and snowmelt caused LATQ to surge. To prevent waterlogging and save water for dry periods, it is necessary to control this peak flow phase. Hydrological processes, permafrost dynamics, and land cover changes in the SRYR are difficult, according to the data. These interactions enhance water circulation throughout the year, recharge of groundwater supplies, surface runoff, and lateral flow. For the region’s water resource management to be effective in sustaining ecohydrology, ensuring appropriate water storage, and alleviating freshwater scarcity, these dynamics must be considered.

Keywords

Cold region / Land cover change / Permafrost hydrology / SWAT model / Source region / Yangtze river

Data availability statement

The data used in this study is available with the authors and can be accessed upon request.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Naveed Ahmed: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Writing – original draft. Haishen Lu: Funding acquisition, Investigation, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – review & editing. Zhongbo Yu: Funding acquisition, Investigation, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – review & editing. Oluwafemi E. Adeyeri: Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Visualization, Writing – review & editing. Muhammad Shahid Iqbal: Supervision, Writing – review & editing. Jinbin Su: Funding acquisition, Investigation, Writing – review & editing.

Declaration of competing interests

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

The authors are thankful to the Yangtze River Authority and Chinese Meteorological Administration for providing the data used in this study. They are also thankful to the College of Hydrology and Water Resources of Hohai University for providing technical support and resources. The first author also acknowledges the China Post Doctoral Forum for providing the opportunity for this research work. This study was financially supported by the Key Program of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41830752) and the General Program of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants No. 42101397, 42071033, 41961134003).

Supplementary materials

Supplementary material associated with this article can be found, in the online version, at doi:10.1016/j.geosus.2024.06.004.

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