Processes of runoff in seasonally-frozen ground about a forested catchment of semiarid mountains

doi:10.3724/SP.J.1226.2020.00272.

Abstract

Abstract:

Climate warming increases the variability in runoff of semiarid mountains where seasonally-frozen ground is widely distributed. However, what is not well understood are the processes of runoff, hydrological drivers, and freeze-thaw cycles in seasonally-frozen ground in semiarid mountains. To understand how freeze-thaw cycles affect runoff processes in seasonally-frozen ground, we monitored hydrological processes in a typical headwater catchment with seasonally-frozen ground in Qilian Mountain, China, from 2002 to 2017. We analyzed the responses of runoff to temperature, precipitation, and seasonally-frozen ground to quantify process characteristics and driving factors. The results show that annual runoff was 88.5 mm accounting for 25.6% of rainfall, mainly concentrated in May to October, with baseflow of 36.44 mm. Peak runoff occurred in June, August, and September, i.e., accounting for spring and summer floods. Runoff during the spring flood was produced by a mix of rainfall, melting snow, and melting seasonally-frozen ground, and had a significant correlation with air temperature. Runoff was mainly due to precipitation accumulation during the summer flood. Air temperature, average soil temperature at 0-50 cm depth, and frozen soil depth variable explained 59.60% of the variation of runoff in the thawing period, while precipitation variable explained 21.9%. Thawing-period runoff and soil temperature had a >0.6 correlation coefficient (P <0.05). In the rainfall-period, runoff was also affected by temperature, soil moisture, and precipitation, which explained 33.6%, 34.1% and 18.1%, respectively. Our results show that increasing temperature and precipitation will have an irreversible impact on the hydrological regime in mountainous basins where seasonally-frozen ground is widely distributed.

Key words: runoff, seasonally-frozen ground, semiarid mountains, Northeast margin of Tibetan Plateau

PengFei Lin,ZhiBin He,Jun Du,LongFei Chen,Xi Zhu,QuanYan Tian. Processes of runoff in seasonally-frozen ground about a forested catchment of semiarid mountains[J].Sciences in Cold and Arid Regions, 2020, 12(5): 272-283.

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Year	Precipitation (mm)	Runoff (mm)	Runoff coefficient	Baseflow (mm)	BFI
2010	413.70	58.80	0.14	29.31	0.4986
2011	379.20	44.48	0.11	20.08	0.4515
2012	410.70	58.30	0.14	28.96	0.4967
2013	422.90	67.70	0.16	34.58	0.5108
2014	471.20	77.50	0.16	40.39	0.5212
2015	449.70	85.90	0.19	47.80	0.5565
2016	430.20	81.80	0.18	42.96	0.5253
2017	437.20	77.30	0.18	41.47	0.5365
Avg.	426.80	68.90	0.16	35.72	0.5121
Sd.	27.50	14.20	0.03	6.01	0.0169

Year	Freezing period		Thawing period		Rainfall period
Year	Precipitation (mm)	Runoff (mm)	Precipitation (mm)	Runoff (mm)	Precipitation (mm)	Runoff (mm)
2010	55.00	7.48	101.9	6.76	256.80	44.56
2011	44.80	7.92	71.10	2.32	263.20	34.24
2012	46.60	4.63	57.20	2.95	306.80	50.72
2013	40.20	8.08	51.60	2.14	331.20	57.48
2014	42.60	9.20	55.00	2.60	373.60	65.70
2015	38.40	7.60	88.20	4.14	323.00	74.16
2016	34.60	10.82	59.40	3.11	336.20	67.87
2017	35.60	8.08	62.40	3.37	339.20	65.85
Avg.	42.22	7.98	68.35	3.42	316.25	57.57
Sd.	6.65	1.74	17.83	1.48	39.50	13.50

Period	Variable	1	2	3
Thawing	Air temperature	0.85
	Precipitation		0.54
	0-50 cm soil temperature	0.96
	0-50 cm soil moisture		0.63
	Soil freeze-thaw thickness	-0.93
	Contribution rate	59.60%	21.9%
Rainfall	Air temperature		0.85
	Precipitation			0.98
	0-50 cm soil temperature		0.92
	0-50 cm soil moisture	0.86
	Soil freeze-thaw thickness	-0.52
	Contribution rate	34.10%	33.6%	18.1%

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