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Journal of Arid Land
Journal of Arid Land  2020, Vol. 12 Issue (1): 44-57    DOI: 10.1007/s40333-019-0030-9     CSTR: 32276.14.s40333-019-0030-9
Research article     
Flow regime changes in three catchments with different landforms following ecological restoration in the Chinese Loess Plateau
LUO Zhidong1,2, LIU Erjia1, QI Shi1,3,4,*(), ZHAO Nan5, SUN Yun2
1 College of Soil and Water Conservation, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China
2 Water and Soil Conservation Monitoring Center of Ministry of Water Resources, Beijing 100053, China
3 Key Laboratory of Soil and Water Conservation of State Forestry Administration, Beijing 100083, China
4 Engineering Research Center of Forestry Ecological Engineering, Ministry of Education, Beijing 100083, China
5 Shanxi Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Taiyuan 030045, China
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Abstract  

The Chinese Loess Plateau is known as one of the most severe soil erosion regions in the world. Two ecological restoration projects, i.e., the integrated soil conservation project since the 1970s and the ''Grain for Green'' project since 1999, have been progressively implemented to control the soil erosion in this area. Ecological restoration has greatly changed flow regime over the past five decades. However, the mechanism of how flow regime responds to ecological restoration among landforms remains poorly understood. In this study, we investigated the temporal dynamics of flow regime in three catchments, i.e., Wuqi, Honghe and Huangling hydrological stations, respectively representing the loess hilly-gully, loess table-gully and rocky mountain (covered by secondary forest) areas in the Chinese Loess Plateau, using daily hydrological data during the 1960s-2010s. The nonparametric Mann-Kendall test, Pettitt's test and daily flow series were used to investigate the changes of flow regime. Significantly negative trends of annual streamflow were detected at the Wuqi and Honghe stations, except for the Huangling station. The annual baseflow at the Wuqi station showed a significantly positive trend whereas a significantly negative trend was observed at the Honghe station, and there was no significant trend at the Huangling station. It was interesting that baseflow index significantly increased during the whole period in all catchments. However, the trends and change points of daily flow series derived by different percentages of exceedance and extreme series in different consecutive days varied among individuals. Based on the change points analysis of annual streamflow, we divided data series into three periods, i.e., the baseline period (from 1959 and 1963 to 1979, PI), the integrated soil conservation period (1980-1999, PII) and the ''Grain for Green'' period (2000-2011, PIII). We found that streamflow decreased due to the reduction of high streamflow (exceeding 5% of time within a year) and median streamflow (50%) in PII and PIII at the Wuqi and Honghe stations. However, low flow (95%) increased in PII and PIII at the Wuqi station while decreased at the Honghe station. Streamflow change at the Huangling station was more stable, thus potentially resulting in much less soil erosion in the forestry area than in the other areas. The great improvement in ecological environment on the Chinese Loess Plateau revealed the advantages of ecological restoration in reducing flood amount and compensating streamflow at a regional scale.

Key words： change point      extreme series      hydrological data      soil erosion      streamflow changes     
Received: 03 August 2018      Published: 10 February 2020
Corresponding Authors:
About author: *Corresponding author: QI Shi (E-mail: qishi@bjfu.edu.cn)
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Zhidong LUO
Erjia LIU
Shi QI
Nan ZHAO
Yun SUN
Cite this article:

LUO Zhidong, LIU Erjia, QI Shi, ZHAO Nan, SUN Yun. Flow regime changes in three catchments with different landforms following ecological restoration in the Chinese Loess Plateau. Journal of Arid Land, 2020, 12(1): 44-57.

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http://jal.xjegi.com/10.1007/s40333-019-0030-9     OR     http://jal.xjegi.com/Y2020/V12/I1/44

Fig. 1 Study area (a) and locations of the Juhe River (b), upper reaches of the Beiluo River (c) and the Honghe River (d) on the Chinese Loess Plateau. Three gauge stations are shown.
Catchment Hydrological station Latitude Longitude Elevation (m) Number of meteorological station Area (km2) Period
Beiluo (upstream) Wuqi 109.25°E 35.45°N 1430 8 3408 1963-2011
Juhe Huangling 108.10°E 35.58°N 1350 10 2266 1967-2011
Honghe Honghe 107.47°E 36.52°N 2460 8 1336 1959-2011
Table 1 Information of the Beiluo, Juhe and Honghe catchments
Hydrological station Period Streamflow
(mm/a)		 Baseflow
(mm/a)		 BFI
(mm/a)		 Precipitation
(mm/a)		 PET
(mm/a)
Wuqi 1963-1969 40.11 8.90 0.27 479.36 1731.70
1970-1979 27.12 9.50 0.35 406.41 1820.55
1980-1989 23.71 9.79 0.41 402.90 1708.28
1990-1999 33.44 10.37 0.31 404.66 1843.91
2000-2011 18.21 11.24 0.56 402.51 1810.62
1963-2011 27.39 9.83 0.36 415.33 1786.29
Huangling 1967-1969 62.61 39.02 0.62 601.85 1664.24
1970-1979 44.89 25.55 0.57 553.02 1721.49
1980-1989 57.87 38.70 0.67 597.58 1530.45
1990-1999 37.46 27.45 0.73 527.19 1656.08
2000-2011 50.90 32.51 0.64 565.39 1659.78
1967-2011 48.91 31.70 0.65 563.66 1643.51
Honghe 1959-1969 50.46 19.96 0.40 553.05 1677.76
1970-1979 44.03 15.64 0.36 494.37 1763.14
1980-1989 36.29 14.12 0.39 484.56 1558.43
1990-1999 27.88 10.38 0.37 485.89 1684.52
2000-2011 26.64 11.96 0.45 475.98 1666.07
1959-2011 36.92 14.42 0.39 498.94 1670.22
Table 2 Interdecadal characteristics of flow and climatic variables in the hydrological stations
Hydrological
station		 Streamflow Baseflow BFI Precipitation PET
Z Sig. β (mm/a) Z Sig. β (mm/a) Z Sig. β (mm/a) Z Sig. β (mm/a) Z Sig. β (mm/a)
Wuqi -3.63 0.001 -0.32 3.28 0.01 0.04 4.58 0.001 0.007 -0.99 >0.05 -1.01 -0.96 >0.05 -1.40
Huangling -1.07 >0.05 -0.27 0.38 >0.05 0.14 2.26 0.01 0.003 -0.82 >0.05 -1.02 -0.65 >0.05 -1.14
Honghe -3.69 0.001 -0.45 -3.64 0.001 -0.18 2.02 0.01 0.001 -1.59 >0.05 -1.38 -0.80 >0.05 -0.88
Table 3 Trends analysis for annual flow and climatic variables in the hydrological stations
Flow record Wuqi Huangling Honghe
Streamflow Baseflow Streamflow Baseflow Streamflow Baseflow
Q5 -3.22** 2.49* -0.66NS -0.79NS -2.89** -1.99*
Q10 -2.83** 2.47* -0.60NS -0.69NS -2.28* -2.49*
Q20 -2.24* -0.20NS -0.85NS -0.26NS -2.58** -2.77**
Q30 -2.80** -0.16NS -0.65NS -0.14NS -2.78** -3.18**
Q40 -2.67** 0.94NS -1.11NS -0.22NS -2.97** -3.86***
Q50 -2.76** 1.70NS -0.52NS -0.08NS -3.11** -4.13***
Q60 -2.77** 1.95NS 0.06NS 0.91NS -3.01** -4.73***
Q70 -1.16NS 2.35* 0.75NS 1.16NS -3.80*** -5.10***
Q80 0.05NS 3.04** 0.78NS 1.62NS -4.50*** -5.45***
Q90 2.40* 4.34*** 0.80NS 1.57NS -4.90*** -4.96***
Q95 3.92*** 4.75*** 1.01NS 1.83NS -4.93*** -4.66***
Min1 -3.63*** 5.05*** 2.45* 1.80NS -3.42*** -3.78***
Min7 4.42*** 4.85*** 1.31NS 1.66NS -4.07*** -4.18***
Min30 2.05* 4.40*** 0.45NS 2.06* -3.58*** -4.26***
Max1 -2.41* 2.07* -0.81NS -0.66NS -3.05** -2.03*
Max7 -2.73** 2.11* -0.60NS -0.48NS -2.34* 1.60NS
Max30 -3.28** 2.56* 0.18NS 1.81NS -2.86** -1.76NS
Q5:Q50 -2.44* 1.41NS -0.81NS -1.54NS -0.70NS 1.19NS
Q95:Q50 4.83*** 2.40** 2.55* 2.91* -1.96NS -1.73NS
Table 4 Trend tests for annual variation of daily streamflow and baseflow series constructed using various percentiles for the hydrological stations
Fig. 2 Pettitt's test for detecting change points in (a) annual streamflow, (b) annual baseflow and (c) baseflow index at the Wuqi station
Fig. 3 Pettitt's test for detecting change points in (a) annual streamflow, (b) annual baseflow and (c) baseflow index at the Huangling station
Fig. 4 Pettitt's test for detecting change points in (a) annual streamflow, (b) annual baseflow and (c) baseflow index at the Honghe station
Flow record Wuqi Huangling Honghe
Streamflow Baseflow Streamflow Baseflow Streamflow Baseflow
Q5 1990* 1993** - - 1984** 1984**
Q10 1991* 1993** - - 1984** 1984**
Q20 2002* - - - 1984** 1984**
Q30 1981* - - - 1985** 1985**
Q40 1981*, 2002** - - - 1985** 1985**
Q50 1990*, 2002** 1976* - - 1985** 1985**
Q60 1998** 1982* - - 1985** 1985**
Q70 1998* 1982** - - 1985** 1985**
Q80 - 1984** - - 1986** 1990**
Q90 1984** 1985** - - 1990** 1990**
Q5 1984** 1977** - - 1990** 1990**
Min1 1979*, 2002** 1985** 1982** 1982** 1994** 1993**
Min7 1977**, 2002* 1977**, 2002* - 1982** 1994** 1994**
Min30 1977** 1977** - 1982** 1990** 1990**
Max1 2001* 1993* - - 1992** 1992**
Max7 2001* 1993* - - 1992** 1984**
Max30 1979*,2001** 1993** - 1982** 1983** 1984**
Q5:Q50 - 1999** - - - -
Q95:Q50 1985**,1999* 1985**,1999* 1983** 1983** 1997** 1994**
Table 5 Change point detection results for streamflow and baseflow in the hydrological stations
Index Hydrological station PI PII PII
Mean (mm) Max/min ratio CV SD (mm) Mean (mm) Max/min ratio CV SD (mm) Mean (mm) Max/min ratio CV SD (mm)
Streamflow Wuqi 32.47 3.74 0.39 12.80 28.58 5.78 0.57 16.43 18.21 2.53 0.31 5.70
Huangling 48.98 5.99 0.62 30.38 47.66 6.28 0.58 27.87 50.90 6.22 0.68 34.78
Honghe 46.75 5.72 0.43 20.05 28.10 4.96 0.37 10.35 26.64 2.37 0.27 7.29
Baseflow Wuqi 9.25 1.60 0.13 1.19 10.08 1.54 0.14 1.37 10.24 1.38 0.09 0.90
Huangling 28.66 3.89 0.47 13.47 33.08 5.56 0.55 18.05 32.51 4.76 0.52 16.87
Honghe 17.71 3.36 0.32 5.62 10.69 3.18 0.30 3.23 11.96 2.91 0.32 3.86
BFI Wuqi 0.32 3.83 0.34 0.11 0.41 4.33 0.31 0.13 0.61 2.52 0.29 0.17
Huangling 0.63 1.76 0.15 0.10 0.71 1.66 0.12 0.09 0.69 2.12 0.19 0.13
Honghe 0.40 3.19 0.24 0.10 0.39 1.63 0.15 0.06 0.45 1.37 0.09 0.04
Precipitation Wuqi 430.10 2.63 0.25 108.73 403.78 2.20 0.21 83.95 402.51 1.69 0.20 81.41
Huangling 564.29 1.79 0.17 98.05 562.39 2.27 0.19 107.06 565.39 1.79 0.18 99.32
Honghe 523.64 2.34 0.21 111.00 474.48 2.44 0.24 114.14 475.98 2.00 0.22 106.16
PET Wuqi 1783.97 1.47 0.08 145.93 1776.10 1.33 0.09 156.67 1810.62 1.24 0.06 104.52
Huangling 1708.28 1.23 0.07 112.04 1593.27 1.49 0.11 180.05 1659.78 1.21 0.05 88.67
Honghe 1686.22 1.44 0.08 142.64 1644.97 1.38 0.11 173.36 1666.07 1.21 0.06 93.24
Table 6 Changes of hydrological characteristics, precipitation, baseflow index (BFI) and potential evaporation (PET) in different periods in the hydrological stations
Hydrological
station		 Flow
regime		 Relative change (%)
PII PIII
∆Q5 ∆Q50 ∆Q95 ∆Q5 ∆Q50 ∆Q95
Wuqi Streamflow -21.46 -5.77 99.00 -41.42 -22.09 118.47
Baseflow 12.84 12.92 171.00 28.40 2.87 237.78
Huangling Streamflow 6.25 6.12 55.17 14.02 -6.63 36.21
Baseflow 6.68 13.82 114.19 23.90 6.58 81.08
Honghe Streamflow -29.60 -19.10 -34.38 -22.80 -28.28 -76.40
Baseflow -45.31 -38.78 -55.59 -15.12 -33.17 -74.49
Table 7 Relative changes in high (∆Q5), median (∆Q50) and low flow (∆Q95) in PII and PIII
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