Trends and attribution of runoff changes in the upper and middle reaches of the Yellow River in China

Natural changes of river regime have been strongly interfered globally by human activities. This gives rise to the demand of quantifying the contribution of natural and human impacts to runoff changes of rivers for river management. In this study, Mann-Kendall test and BFAST algorithm were used to evaluate the trends of runoff change in the upper and middle reaches of the Yellow River from 1965 to 2016, and to identify the breakpoints of runoff changes in the two reaches. Based on the data-driven analysis of runoff generation mechanism, the natural annual runoff was related with a comprehensive climatic factor integrating temperature and precipitation, and the impacts of human activities and climate change on the runoff changes were quantitatively distinguished by comparing the measured runoff with the “natural runoff”. For revealing the periodical changes in correlation between climate factors and runoff, the method of cross wavelet transform was used, and the time-frequency characteristics of precipitation/temperature against runoff were also examined. The results show that the breakpoints were the year 1987 in the upper reaches, 1986 and 2003 in the middle reaches. Compared with the baseline period (1965–1987), the contribution rates of climate change and human activities to runoff change in the upper reaches of the river were 56% and 44% respectively in 1988–2016. For the middle reaches, compared with the reference period (1965–1986), the contribution from climate change in 1987–2003 and 2004–2016 was 38% and 41% respectively, and that from human activities was 62% and 59% respectively. The results of cross wavelet transform analysis support the growth of climatic contribution to runoff reduction in the middle Yellow River from 1987–2003 to 2004–2016. Apparently, the influencing degree of climate change on runoff in the upper reaches was similar to that of human activities, while human activities played a dominant role in runoff change in the middle reaches. Moreover, the construction of reservoirs and human water consumption were the key factors for the decline of runoff in the upstream, and the reduction of runoff in the middle reaches was related to the large-scale implementation of water conservancy and soil and water conservation in the region.