Disentangling the Contributions of Climate and Basin Characteristics to Water Yield Across Spatial and Temporal Scales in the Yangtze River Basin: A Combined Hydrological Model and Boosted Regression Approach

Fengyun Sun, Alfonso Mejia and Yue Che ()
Additional contact information
Fengyun Sun: East China Normal University
Alfonso Mejia: The Pennsylvania State University
Yue Che: East China Normal University

Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), 2019, vol. 33, issue 10, No 7, 3449-3468

Abstract: Abstract The dependence and contribution of explanatory variables or predictors to water yield need to be closely analyzed and accurately quantified to better understand water balances as well as for effective water resources management. It is generally challenging, however, to disentangle the contribution of individual climate variables from that of basin characteristics to the integrated water yield response. Here we propose a method to concurrently quantify and analyze the effects of climate and basin predictors on water yields. This method employs the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) to simulate water yield. Simulated results are then analyzed and compared using Boosted Regression Trees (BRTs) at multiple spatial and temporal scales. Results indicate that in the Yangtze River Basin (YRB) on average, precipitation is of paramount importance, followed by land cover, while slope has the lowest contribution. The average relative contributions of soil moisture, maximum and minimum temperatures are different among temporal scales. More stable and reliable results are derived at the daily scale compared to the yearly and monthly scale. Our results make evident that generalizations about water yield response made in the absence of a comprehensive and accurate description of site- and scale-specific contributions can lead to misleading assessments. This proposed approach can be useful for informing and supporting more effective water resources management goals.

Keywords: Water yield; Spatial and temporal scales; Soil and water assessment tool (SWAT); Boosted regression tree (BRT); Yangtze River Basin (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11269-019-02310-y Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:waterr:v:33:y:2019:i:10:d:10.1007_s11269-019-02310-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11269

DOI: 10.1007/s11269-019-02310-y

Access Statistics for this article

Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA) is currently edited by G. Tsakiris

More articles in Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA) from Springer, European Water Resources Association (EWRA)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().