Urbanization Significantly Affects Pan-Evaporation Trends in Large River Basins of China Mainland

Chenchen Ren, Guoyu Ren, Panfeng Zhang, Suonam Kealdrup Tysa and Yun Qin
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Chenchen Ren: Department of Atmospheric Science, School of Environmental Studies, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China
Guoyu Ren: Department of Atmospheric Science, School of Environmental Studies, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China
Panfeng Zhang: Department of Atmospheric Science, School of Environmental Studies, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China
Suonam Kealdrup Tysa: Department of Atmospheric Science, School of Environmental Studies, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China
Yun Qin: Department of Atmospheric Science, School of Environmental Studies, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China

Land, 2021, vol. 10, issue 4, 1-11

Abstract: The causes of the pan-evaporation decline have been debated, and few researches have been carried out on the possible effect of local land use and land cover change on the regional pan-observation data series. In this paper, the urbanization effect on the estimate of pan-evaporation trends over 1961–2017 was examined for the data series of 331 urban stations, applying a previously developed dataset of the reference stations, in seven large river basins of the China mainland. The trends of pan-evaporation difference series (transformed to anomaly percentage) between urban stations and reference stations were negative and statistically significant in all of the basins, indicating that urbanization significantly reduced the pan-evaporation. The urbanization-induced trend in the whole study region was −2.54%/decade for the urban stations. Except for the Yellow River Basin and the upper Yangtze River Basin, the urbanization effects in the other five large river basins of the country are all significant, with the mid and low reaches of the Yangtze River and the Songhua River registering the largest urbanization effects of −4.08%/decade and −4.06%/decade, respectively. Since the trends of regional average series for reference stations across half of the river basins are not statistically significant, the urbanization effect is a dominant factor for the observed decline in pan-evaporation. This finding would deepen our understanding of the regional and basin-wide change in pan-evaporation observed over the last decades.

Keywords: pan-evaporation; downward trend; urbanization effect; data bias; China mainland (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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