Response of runoff to climate change in the area of runoff yield in upstream Shiyang River Basin,Northwest China: A case study of the Xiying River

The objective of this study was to analyze the response of runoff in the area of runoff yield of the upstream Shiyang River basin to climate change and to promote sustainable development of regional water resources and ecological environment. As the biggest tributary of the Shiyang River, Xiying River is the only hydrological station (Jiutiaoling) that has provincial natural river and can achieve long time series monitoring data in the basin. The data obtained from this station is representative of natural conditions because it has little human activites. This study built a regression model through identifying the characteristics of runoff and climate change by using Mann-Kendall nonparametric statistical test, cumulative anomaly, and correlation analysis. The results show that the average annual runoff is 320.6 million m³/a with the coefficient of variation of 0.18 and shows slightly decrease during 1956–2020. It has a significant positive correlation the average annual precipitation (P<0.01). Runoff is sensitive to climate change, and the climate has becoming warm and wet and annual runoff has entering wet period from 2003. Compared to the earlier period (1955–2000), the increases of average annual temperature, precipitation and runoff in recent two decades were 15%, 9.3%, and 7.8%, respectively. Runoff in the Shiyang River is affected by temperature and precipitation among climate factors, and the simulation results of the runoff-climate response model (R = 0.0052P ? 0.1589T + 2.373) indicate that higher temperature leads to a weakening of the ecological regulation of surface runoff in the flow-producing area.