Revealing Water Storage Changes and Ecological Water Conveyance Benefits in the Tarim River Basin over the Past 20 Years Based on GRACE/GRACE-FO

As China’s largest inland river basin and one of the world’s most arid regions, the Tarim River Basin is home to an extremely fragile ecological environment. Therefore, monitoring the water storage changes is critical for enhancing water resources management and improving hydrological policies to en...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Remote sensing (Basel, Switzerland) Switzerland), 2024-11, Vol.16 (23), p.4355
Main Authors: Sun, Weicheng, Zhang, Xingfu
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aquifers
Arid regions
Arid zones
Datasets
Drought
Ecological monitoring
Evapotranspiration
Glaciers
Groundwater
Groundwater levels
Groundwater storage
Human factors
Hydrologic data
Hydrology
Precipitation
Principal components analysis
Rain
River basin development
River basins
Rivers
Signal processing
Sustainable development
Water conveyance
Water monitoring
Water policy
Water resources
Water resources management
Water storage
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Summary:As China’s largest inland river basin and one of the world’s most arid regions, the Tarim River Basin is home to an extremely fragile ecological environment. Therefore, monitoring the water storage changes is critical for enhancing water resources management and improving hydrological policies to ensure sustainable development. This study reveals the spatiotemporal changes of water storage and its driving factors in the Tarim River Basin from 2002 to 2022, utilizing data from GRACE, GRACE-FO (GFO), GLDAS, the glacier model, and measured hydrological data. In addition, we validate GRACE/GFO data as a novel resource that can monitor the ecological water conveyance (EWC) benefits effectively in the lower reaches of the basin. The results reveal that (1) the northern Tarim River Basin has experienced a significant decline in terrestrial water storage (TWS), with an overall deficit that appears to have accelerated in recent years. From April 2002 to December 2009, the groundwater storage (GWS) anomaly accounted for 87.5% of the TWS anomaly, while from January 2010 to January 2020, the ice water storage (IWS) anomaly contributed 57.1% to the TWS anomaly. (2) The TWS changes in the Tarim River Basin are primarily attributed to the changes of GWS and IWS, and they have the highest correlation with precipitation and evapotranspiration, with grey relation analysis (GRA) coefficients of 0.74 and 0.68, respectively, while the human factors mainly affect GWS, with an average GRA coefficient of 0.64. (3) In assessing ecological water conveyance (EWC) benefits, the GRACE/GFO-derived TWS anomaly in the lower reaches of the Tarim River exhibits a good correspondence with the changes of EWC, NDVI, and groundwater levels.
ISSN:2072-4292
2072-4292
DOI:10.3390/rs16234355