The influence of climate change and human activities on runoff in the middle reaches of the Huaihe River Basin, China

This study presents a soil and water integrated model (SWIM) and associated statistical analyses for the Huaihe River Basin (HRB) based on daily meteorological, river runoff, and water resource data encompassing the period between 1959 and 2015. The aim of this research is to quantitatively analyze the rate of contribution of upstream runoff to that of the midstream as well as the influence of climate change and human activities in this section of the river. Our goal is to explain why extreme precipitation is concentrated in the upper reaches of the HRB while floods tend to occur frequently in the middle reaches of this river basin. Results show that the rate of contribution of precipitation to runoff in the upper reaches of the HRB is significantly higher than temperature. Data show that the maximum contribution rate of upstream runoff to that of the midstream can be as high as 2.23%, while the contribution of temperature is just 0.38%. In contrast, the rate of contribution of human activities to runoff is 87.20% in the middle reaches of the HRB, while that due to climate change is 12.80%. Frequent flood disasters therefore occur in the middle reaches of the HRB because of the combined effects of extreme precipitation in the upper reaches and human activities in the middle sections.