Relative effects of human activities and climate change on the river runoff in an arid basin in northwest China

Understanding the mechanisms of river runoff variation is important for the effective management of water resources in arid and semi‐arid regions. This study uses long‐term observational data as a basis for examining the effects of human activities and climate change on the runoff variation of Jinghe River Basin, a typical arid inland basin in northwest China. A distributed hydrological model called the Soil and Water Assessment Tool, combined with a sequential cluster method and a separation approach, was used to quantify and distinguish the effects of human activities and climate change on runoff. The hydrological sequence before 1981 can be considered natural. However, human activities have significantly affected runoff since 1981. The runoff reduction caused by human activities between 1981 and 2008 accounted for 85.7% of the total reduction in the downstream of Jinghe River, whereas that caused by climatic variation was only 14.3%. This observation suggests that human activities are the major driver of runoff variation in the basin. Although the role of climate change in driving runoff variation has been identified to be prevalent and dominant in arid regions, this study highlights the importance of human activities. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Impact of climate change on water availability in the Macquarie‐Castlereagh River Basin in Australia

The impact of future climate on runoff generation and the implications of these changes for management of water resources in a river basin are investigated by running these changes through catchment and river system models. Two conceptual daily rainfall‐runoff models are used to simulate runoff across the Macquarie‐Castlereagh region for historical (1895–2006) and future (～2030) climate based on outputs from 15 of the 23 IPCC AR4 GCMs for the A1B global warming scenario. The estimates of future runoff are used as inputs to the river system model. The mean annual historical rainfall averaged across the Macquarie‐Castlereagh region is 544 mm and the simulated runoff is 34 and 30 mm for SIMHYD and Sacramento rainfall‐runoff models, respectively. The mean annual future rainfall and runoff across the region are projected to decrease. The modelling results show a median estimate of a 5% reduction for SIMHYD (50% confidence interval ? 11 to + 7%) and a 7% reduction for Sacramento (50% confidence interval ? 15 to + 8%) in mean annual runoff under a ～2030 climate for the region. The results from the river system modelling indicate that under the ～2030 climate scenario, the median of general security and supplementary diversions are projected to decrease by 4% (50% confidence interval ? 10 to + 5%) and 2% (50% confidence interval ? 5 to + 3%) respectively for the SIMHYD inflows and 8% (50% confidence interval ? 17 to + 6%) and 5% (50% confidence interval ? 11 to + 3%) for the Sacramento inflows. The future annual and seasonal storage volumes for the Burrendong Dam and inflows at all major locations across the region are projected to be lower than the historical records. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

太湖北岸湖滨带观测场水生植物群落特征及其影响因素分析

研究了鄱阳湖流域在1955-2002年间的径流系数的变化,重点分析了它与水循环的两个基本要素:降水量和蒸发量的关系,同时对其原因进行了初步的探讨.经分析,在鄱阳湖流域中,径流系数较大的是饶河流域和信江流域,较小的是抚河流域;在年内变化上,4-6月为五河流域径流系数比较大的月份,这与鄱阳湖流域降水集中期相对应.在空间上,4-6月仍然以饶河流域和信江流域相对较大,而抚河流域较小,特别是8月份的径流系数远小于其他四河;年代际变化上,1990s径流系数增加较为显著.尽管鄱阳湖流域的径流系数除了受气候因子的影响外,还受到水土流失和地形等因素的影响,但是降水量的增加,特别是暴雨频率的增加仍然是其主要影响因素,蒸发量的减小对径流系数的增加也有一定程度的影响.径流系数与气温并无明显的线性相关关系.     

The impact of climate change on runoff in the Yarlung Tsangpo River basin in the Tibetan Plateau

The Tibetan Plateau (TP) is the “water tower of Asia” and it plays a key role on both hydrology and climate for southern and eastern Asia. It is critical to explore the impact of climate change on runoff for better water resources management in the TP. However, few studies pay attention to the runoff response to climate change in large river systems on the TP, especially in data-sparse upstream area. To complement the current body of work, this study uses two rainfall-runoff models (SIMHYD and GR4J) to simulate the monthly and annual runoff in the upstream catchments of the Yarlung Tsangpo River basin (YTR) under historical (1962–2002) and future (2046–2065 A1B scenario) climate conditions. The future climate series are downscaled from a global climate model (MIROC3.2_hires) by a high resolution regional climate model (RegCM3). The two rainfall-runoff models successfully simulate the historical runoff for the eight catchments in the YTR basin, with median monthly runoff Nash–Sutcliffe Efficiency of 0.86 for SIMHYD and 0.83 for GR4J. The mean annual future temperature in eight catchments show significant increase with the median of +3.8 °C. However, the mean annual future precipitation shows decrease with the median of ?5.8 % except in Lhatse (+2.0 %). The two models show similar modeling results that the mean annual future runoff in most of catchments (seven in eight) shows decrease with the median of ?13.9 % from SIMHYD and ?15.2 % from GR4J. The results achieved in this study are not only helpful for local water resources management, but also for future water utilization planning in the lower reaches region of the Brahmaputra.     

Periodicity of sediment load and runoff in the Yangtze River basin and possible impacts of climatic changes and human activities / Périodicité de la charge sédimentaire et de l'écoulement dans le bassin du Fleuve Yangtze et impacts possibles des changements climatiques et des activités humaines

Abstract

Periodicity of the runoff and the sediment load, and possible impacts from human activities and climatic changes, in the Yangtze River basin during 1963–2004 are discussed based on the monthly sediment and runoff data, and using the wavelet approach. Research results indicated that: (a) Sediment load changes are severely impacted by the different types of human activity (e.g. construction of water reservoirs, deforestation/afforestation); and the runoff variability is the direct result of climatic changes, e.g. the precipitation changes. (b) The impacts of human activity and climatic changes on the sediment load and runoff changes are greater in smaller river basins (e.g. the Jialingjiang River basin) than in larger river basins. The response of sediment load and runoff changes to the impacts of human activities and climatic changes are prompt and prominent in the Jialingjiang River basin relative to those in the mainstem of the Yangtze River basin. (c) Construction of the Three Gorges Dam has already had obvious impacts on the sediment transport process in the middle and lower Yangtze River basin, but shows no obvious influence on the runoff changes. Construction of the Three Gorges Dam will result in further re-adjustment of the scouring/filling process within the river channel in the middle and lower Yangtze River basin, and have corresponding effects on the altered sediment load because of the Dam's operation for the river channel, ecology, sustainable social economy and even the development of the Yangtze Delta. This will be of concern to local governments and policy makers.     

Evaluation of impacts of climate change and human activities on streamflow in the Poyang Lake basin,China

Variations in streamflows of five tributaries of the Poyang Lake basin, China, because of the influence of human activities and climate change were evaluated using the Australia Water Balance Model and multivariate regression. Results indicated that multiple regression models were appropriate with precipitation, potential evapotranspiration of the current month, and precipitation of the last month as explanatory variables. The NASH coefficient for the Australia Water Balance Model was larger than 0.842, indicating satisfactory simulation of streamflow of the Poyang Lake basin. Comparison indicated that the sensitivity method could not exclude the benchmark‐period human influence, and the human influence on streamflow changes was overestimated. Generally, contributions of human activities and climate change to streamflow changes were 73.2% and 26.8% respectively. However, human‐induced and climate‐induced influences on streamflow were different in different river basins. Specifically, climate change was found to be the major driving factor for the increase of streamflow within the Rao, Xin, and Gan River basins; however, human activity was the principal driving factor for the increase of streamflow of the Xiu River basin and also for the decrease of streamflow of the Fu River basin. Meanwhile, impacts of human activities and climate change on streamflow variations were distinctly different at different temporal scales. At the annual time scale, the increase of streamflow was largely because of climate change and human activities during the 1970s–1990s and the decrease of streamflow during the 2000s. At the seasonal scale, climate change was the main factor behind the increase of streamflow in the spring and summer season. Human activities increase the streamflow in autumn and winter, but decrease the streamflow in spring. At the monthly scale, different influences of climate change and human activities were detected. Climate change was the main factor behind the decrease of streamflow during May to June and human activities behind the decrease of streamflow during February to May. Results of this study can provide a theoretical basis for basin‐scale water resources management under the influence of climate change and human activities. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cross-spectral analysis of rainfall and runoff for Raritan and Mullica river basins in New Jersey

Cross-correlation and cross-spectral analysis were employed in the analysis of rainfall and runoff in two river basins: the Raritan and Mullica River basins in New Jersey. Cross-covariance and coherence were studied in the correlograms for the following correlation cases: (a) rainfall-runoff for each one basin separately; (b) rainfall-rainfall analysis for two main meteorological stations in each one of the basins; (c) runoff-runoff for two main gaging stations in each one of the basins. From the estimates of the coherence at various frequencies the cross-spectral analysis shows a highly nonlinear relationship between rainfall and runoff in Raritan and Mullica River basins. A poor coherence observed at the annual cycles for each basin makes it difficult to predict the annual oscillations of runoff from those of rain-fall by a linear regression model. The high coherence between rainfall (or runoff) at the first station and rainfall (or runoff) at the second station within the same basin at almost all frequencies establishes an accurate prediction on a linear basis.     

Impacts of climate change and human activities on surface runoff in the Dongjiang River basin of China

Observed rainfall and flow data from the Dongjiang River basin in humid southern China were used to investigate runoff changes during low‐flow and flooding periods and in annual flows over the past 45 years. We first applied the non‐parametric Mann–Kendall rank statistic method to analyze the change trend in precipitation, surface runoff and pan evaporation in those three periods. Findings showed that only the surface runoff in the low‐flow period increased significantly, which was due to a combination of increased precipitation and decreased pan evaporation. The Pettitt–Mann–Whitney statistical test results showed that 1973 and 1978 were the change points for the low‐flow period runoff in the Boluo sub‐catchment and in the Qilinzui sub‐catchment, respectively. Most importantly, we have developed a framework to separate the effects of climate change and human activities on the changes in surface runoff based on the back‐propagation artificial neural network (BP‐ANN) method from this research. Analyses from this study indicated that climate variabilities such as changes in precipitation and evaporation, and human activities such as reservoir operations, each accounted for about 50% of the runoff change in the low‐flow period in the study basin. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Simulating the impacts of climate variation and land-cover changes on basin hydrology: A case study of the Suomo basin

1 Motivation In the summer of 1998, areas along the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River suffered a damag- ing flood. Causes of the flooding became a hot topic on mass media after the disaster. Deforestation on the upstream areas was widely blamed as the major reason for the flooding. Some scientists, however, disproved the point of view. They believed that the impact of land use and land cover changes (LUCC) was over- stated[1]. Actually, the controversy over forest hydrol- ogy h…     

Mediation effects of vegetation,land use and cover change and karst characteristics on hydrologic processes in heterogeneous karst basins

A thorough understanding of the complex response of hydrologic processes to latent factors is of great significance for regional soil erosion and water resources management. However, what kind of mediation effect exists between hydrologic processes and latent factors is not yet clear, especially in heterogeneous karst regions. In this study, the elasticity coefficient method and partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) were used to investigate the mechanism of latent factors on hydrologic processes in karst basins and to explore the mediation effect between latent factors and hydrologic processes. The results show that the runoff of Yeji River Basin decreased during 1997–2004, but increased or stabilized since 2005. On the monthly scale, the runoff in July and December showed an ‘inverted V-shaped’ change. Both elasticity coefficient method and PLS-SEM showed that climate change contributed the most to runoff (direct effect accounted for 37.94% ~ 61.41%). In PLS-SEM, the total effect sizes of latent factors on runoff were as follows: climate change (0.751 ~ 0.963) > vegetation (0.296 ~ 0.740) > karst characteristics factors (KCF) (−0.454 ~ −0.563) > human activities (−0.036 ~ −0.528) > land use and cover change (LUCC) (−0.036 ~ −0.205). In the typical karst basin, two mediation pathways have been determined: human activities-vegetation/LUCC-runoff, where vegetation and LUCC had a mediation effect of relationships between human activities and runoff; climate change-KCF-runoff, where KCF had a mediation effect of relationships between climate change and runoff. Moreover, PLS-SEM is a preferred method to decouple the complex responses of hydrologic processes in heterogeneous karst basins to climate change and human activities than the elasticity coefficient method. This study conducted further research and exploration on the mechanism of hydrologic processes in heterogeneous karst basins, and provided valuable theoretical references for grassroots water managers to cope with water resources management under the context of future climate change.     

气候变化和人类活动对鄱阳湖流域赣江径流影响的定量分析

气候变化和人类活动对流域径流影响的定量研究是当前研究的热点,赣江作为鄱阳湖流域最大的子流域,径流变化对鄱阳湖湿地水生态系统具有重要的影响.利用Mann-Kendall突变检验分析了赣江流域径流1955—2010年间演变趋势,再分别应用统计方法和IHACRES集总式模型分析气候要素和人类活动对径流的影响.研究表明IHACRES能够较好地模拟赣江流域径流,适用于中亚热带湿润季风气候区.Mann-Kendall突变检验表明赣江流域径流在1979年发生突变,可划分为1955—1979年和1980—2010年两个时段.降水是影响赣江流域径流年际变化的主要因素,而土地利用等人类活动的影响并不明显.水库建设显著影响赣江径流的季节分配,1980—2010年间人类活动影响更加显著,其中45%的年份秋季径流增加50%以上,26%的年份秋季径流增加超过100%,其中1989年的秋季径流增加幅度达到320%.     

Analytical model for a geomorphological instantaneous unit hydrograph

The rainfall‐runoff modelling of a river basin can be divided into two processes: the production function and the transfer function. The production function determines the proportion of gross rainfall actually involved in the runoff. The transfer function spreads the net rainfall over time and space in the river basin. Such a transfer function can be modelled using the approach of the geomorphological instantaneous unit hydrograph (GIUH). The effectiveness of geomorphological models is actually revealed in rainfall‐runoff modelling, where hydrologic data are desperately lacking, just as in ungauged basins. These models make it possible to forecast the hydrograph shape and runoff variation versus time at the basin outlet. This article is an introduction to a new GIUH model that proves to be simple and analytical. Its geomorphological parameters are easily available on a map or from a digital elevation model. This model is based on general hypotheses on symmetry that provide it with multiscale versatile characteristics. After having validated the model in river basins of very different nature and size, we present an application of this model for rainfall‐runoff modelling. Since parameters are determined relying on real geomorphological data, no calibration is necessary, and it is then possible to carry out rainfall‐runoff simulations in ungauged river basins. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Separating the effects of climate change and human activities on runoff over different time scales in the Zhang River basin

Most studies on separating the effects of climate change and human activities on runoff are mainly conducted at an annual scale with few analyses over different time scales, which is especially essential for regional water resources management. This paper investigates the impacts of climate change and human activities on runoff changes at annual, seasonal and monthly time scales in the Zhang River basin in North China. Firstly, the changing trends and inflection point are analyzed for hydro-climatic series over different time scales. Then the hydrological modeling based method and sensitivity based method are used to separate the effects. The results show that the effect of climate change is stronger than that of human activities on annual runoff changes. However, the driving factors on runoff are different at seasonal scale. In the wet season, the effect of human activities on runoff, accounting for 57 %, is stronger than that of climate change, while in the dry season climate change is the dominant factor for runoff reduction and the contribution rate is 72 %. Furthermore, the effects of climate change and human activities on monthly runoff changes are various in different months. The separated effects over different time scales in this study may provide more scientific basis for the water resources adaptive management over different time scales in this basin.     

Decoupling the effects of deforestation and climate variability in the Tapajós river basin in the Brazilian Amazon

Tropical river basins are experiencing major hydrological alterations as a result of climate variability and deforestation. These drivers of flow changes are often difficult to isolate in large basins based on either observations or experiments; however, combining these methods with numerical models can help identify the contribution of climate and deforestation to hydrological alterations. This paper presents a study carried out in the Tapaj?s River (Brazil), a 477,000 km² basin in South‐eastern Amazonia, in which we analysed the role of annual land cover change on daily river flows. Analysis of observed spatial and temporal trends in rainfall, forest cover, and river flow metrics for 1976 to 2008 indicates a significant shortening of the wet season and reduction in river flows through most of the basin despite no significant trend in annual precipitation. Coincident with seasonal trends over the past 4 decades, over 35% of the original forest (140,000 out of 400,000 km²) was cleared. In order to determine the effects of land clearing and rainfall variability to trends in river flows, we conducted hindcast simulations with ED2 + R, a terrestrial biosphere model incorporating fine scale ecosystem heterogeneity arising from annual land‐use change and linked to a flow routing scheme. The simulations indicated basin‐wide increases in dry season flows caused by land cover transitions beginning in the early 1990s when forest cover dropped to 80% of its original extent. Simulations of historical potential vegetation in the absence of land cover transitions indicate that reduction in rainfall during the dry season (mean of ?9 mm per month) would have had an opposite and larger magnitude effect than deforestation (maximum of +4 mm/month), leading to the overall net negative trend in river flows. In light of the expected increase in future climate variability and water infrastructure development in the Amazon and other tropical basins, this study presents an approach for analysing how multiple drivers of change are altering regional hydrology and water resources management.     

Impacts of climate change and hydraulic structures on runoff and sediment discharge in the middle Yellow River

Due to climate change and its aggravation by human activities (e.g. hydraulic structures) over the past several decades, the hydrological conditions in the middle Yellow River have markedly changed, leading to a sharp decrease in runoff and sediment discharge. This paper focused on the impacts of climate change and hydraulic structures on runoff and sediment discharge, and the study area was located in the 3246 km² Huangfuchuan (HFC) River basin. Changes in annual runoff and sediment discharge were initially analysed by using the Mann–Kendall trend test and Pettitt change point test methods. Subsequently, periods of natural and disturbed states were defined. The results showed that both the annual runoff and sediment discharge presented statistically significant decreasing trends. However, compared with the less remarkable decline in annual rainfall, it was inferred that hydraulic structures might be another important cause for the sharp decrease in runoff and sediment discharge in this region. Consequently, sediment‐trapping dams (STDs, a type of large‐sized check dam used to prevent sediment from entering the Yellow River main stem) were considered in this study. Through evaluating the impacts of the variation in rainfall patterns (i.e. amount and intensity) and the STD construction, a positive correlation between rainfall intensity and current STD construction was found. This paper revealed that future soil and water conservation measures should focus on areas with higher average annual rainfall and more rainstorm hours. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Climate change impact assessment of a river basin using CMIP5 climate models and the VIC hydrological model

Climate change has significant impacts on water availability in larger river basins. The present study evaluates the possible impacts of projected future daily rainfall (2011–2099) on the hydrology of a major river basin in peninsular India, the Godavari River Basin, (GRB), under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios. The study highlights a criteria-based approach for selecting the CMIP5 GCMs, based on their fidelity in simulating the Indian Summer Monsoon rainfall. The nonparametric kernel regression based statistical downscaling model is employed to project future daily rainfall and the variable infiltration capacity (VIC) macroscale hydrological model is used for hydrological simulations. The results indicate an increase in future rainfall without significant change in the spatial pattern of hydrological variables in the GRB. The climate-change-induced projected hydrological changes provide a crucial input to define water resource policies in the GRB. This methodology can be adopted for the climate change impacts assessment of larger river basins worldwide.     

Regionalizing mean annual flow and daily flow variability for basin‐scale sediment and nutrient modelling

River discharges vary strongly through time and space, and quantifying this variability is fundamental to understanding and modelling river processes. The river basin is increasingly being used as the unit for natural resource planning and management; to facilitate this, basin‐scale models of material supply and transport are being developed. For many basin‐scale planning activities, detailed rainfall‐runoff modelling is neither necessary nor tractable, and models that capture spatial patterns of material supply and transport averaged over decades are sufficient. Nevertheless, the data to describe the spatial variability of river discharge across large basins for use in such models are often limited, and hence models to predict river discharge at the basin scale are required. We describe models for predicting mean annual flow and a non‐dimensional measure of daily flow variability for every river reach within a drainage network. The models use sparse river gauging data, modelled grid surfaces of mean annual rainfall and mean annual potential evapotranspiration, and a network accumulation algorithm. We demonstrate the parameterization and application of the models using data for the Murrumbidgee basin, in southeast Australia, and describe the use of these predictions in modelling sediment transport through the river network. The regionalizations described contain less uncertainty, and are more sensitive to observed spatial variations in runoff, than regionalizations based on catchment area and rainfall alone. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Shift trend and step changes for runoff time series in the Shiyang River basin,northwest China

Shift trend and step changes were detected for runoff time series in the Shiyang River basin, one of the inland river basins in north‐west China. Annual runoff data from eight tributaries as well as both annual and monthly runoff from the mainstream from 1958 to 2003 were used. Seven statistical test methods were employed to identify the shift trends and step changes in the study. Mann–Kendall test, Spearman's Rho test, linear regression and Hurst exponent were used to detect past and future shift trends for runoff time series, while the distributed‐free CUSUM test, cumulative deviations and the Worsley likelihood ratio test were used to detect step changes for the same time series. Results showed that the annual runoff from Zamu, Huangyang and Gulang rivers, as well as both annual and monthly runoff from the mainstream, show statistically significant decreasing trends. Future tendency of runoff for both tributaries and mainstream were consistent with that from 1958 to 2003. Step changes probably occurred in 1961 for the runoff from Huangyang, Gulang and Dajing rivers according to the Worsley likelihood ratio test, but no similar results were found using the other two test methods. Three change points (1979, 1974 and 1973) were detected for the mainstream using different methods. These change points were close to the years that reservoirs started to be operated. Both climate change and human activities, especially the latter, contributed to the decreasing runoff in the study area. Between 21% and 79% of the reduction in runoff from the mainstream was due to the impact of human activities during the past few decades. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Impact of human activities on stream flow in the Biliu River basin,China

The obvious decline in stream flow to the Biliu River reservoir over the period 1990–2005 has raised increasing concerns. Climate change and human activities, which mainly include land use changes, hydraulic constructions and artificial water consumption, are considered to be the most likely reasons for the decline in stream flow. This study centres on a detailed analysis of the runoff response to changes in human activities. Using a distributed hydrological model, (Soil and Water Assessment Tool), we simulated runoffs under different human activity and climate scenarios to understand how each scenario impacts stream flow. The results show that artificial water consumption correlates with the precipitation (wet, normal and dry) of the year in question and is responsible for most of the decrease in runoff during each period and for each different wetness year. A Fuzzy Inference Model is also used to find the relationship between the precipitation and artificial water consumption for different years, as well as to make inferences regarding the future average impact on runoff. Land use changes in the past have increased the runoff by only a small amount, while another middle reservoir (Yunshi) has been responsible for a decrease in runoff since operation began in 2001. We generalized the characteristics of the human activities to predict future runoff using climate change scenarios. The future annual flow will increase by approximately 10% from 2011 to 2030 under normal human activities and future climate change scenarios, as indicated by climate scenarios with a particularly wet year in the next 20 years. This study could serve as a framework to analyse and predict the potential impacts of changes both in the climate and human activities on runoff, which can be used to inform the decision making on the river basin planning and management. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Quantitative assessment of the impact of climate variability and human activities on runoff changes: a case study in four catchments of the Haihe River basin,China

Quantitative evaluation of the effect of climate variability and human activities on runoff is of great importance for water resources planning and management in terms of maintaining the ecosystem integrity and sustaining the society development. In this paper, hydro‐climatic data from four catchments (i.e. Luanhe River catchment, Chaohe River catchment, Hutuo River catchment and Zhanghe River catchment) in the Haihe River basin from 1957 to 2000 were used to quantitatively attribute the hydrological response (i.e. runoff) to climate change and human activities separately. To separate the attributes, the temporal trends of annual precipitation, potential evapotranspiration (PET) and runoff during 1957–2000 were first explored by the Mann–Kendall test. Despite that only Hutuo River catchment was dominated by a significant negative trend in annual precipitation, all four catchments presented significant negative trend in annual runoff varying from ?0.859 (Chaohe River) to ?1.996 mm a^?1 (Zhanghe River). Change points in 1977 and 1979 are detected by precipitation–runoff double cumulative curves method and Pettitt's test for Zhanghe River and the other three rivers, respectively, and are adopted to divide data set into two study periods as the pre‐change period and post‐change period. Three methods including hydrological model method, hydrological sensitivity analysis method and climate elasticity method were calibrated with the hydro‐climatic data during the pre‐change period. Then, hydrological runoff response to climate variability and human activities was quantitatively evaluated with the help of the three methods and based on the assumption that climate and human activities are the only drivers for streamflow and are independent of each other. Similar estimates of anthropogenic and climatic effects on runoff for catchments considered can be obtained from the three methods. We found that human activities were the main driving factors for the decline in annual runoff in Luanhe River catchment, Chaohe River catchment and Zhanghe River catchment, accounting for over 50% of runoff reduction. However, climate variability should be responsible for the decrease in annual runoff in the Hutuo River catchment. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.