Application of a Regional Climate Model to the Yellow River Basin for Precipitation Modeling

To evaluate the change of water resources over the Yellow River basin, an examination of precipitation was carried Out using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, a nest generation regional climate model over the Yellow River domain from 1980 to 1997. The results show that the inter - annual variations of precipitation could be represented compared with a dataset based on gauge record at four watersheds over Sanmenxia. ne simulated precipitation at two watersheds in upper reaches is in agreement with observed values. There is underestimation at other watershed in middle reaches. The distribution of annual precipitation over the whole basin is almost reproduced. The estimated decreasing areas of precipitation between the period of 1980 similar to 1989 and 1990 similar to 1997 also agree well with the dataset.