SWAT-simulated streamflow responses to climate variability and human activities in the Miyun Reservoir basin by considering streamflow components

Abstract

The streamflow into Miyun Reservoir, the only surface drinking water source for Beijing City, has declined dramatically over the past five decades. Thus, the impacts of climate variability and human activities (direct and indirect human activities) on streamflow and its components (baseflow and quickflow) needs to be quantitatively estimated for the sustainability of regional water resources management. Based on a heuristic segmentation algorithm, the chosen study period (1969-2012) was segmented into three subseries: a baseline period (1969-1979) and two impact periods I (1980-1998) and II (1999-2012). The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was adopted to investigate the attributions for streamflow change. Our results indicated that the baseflow accounted for almost 63.5% of the annual streamflow based on baseflow separation. The contributions of climate variability and human activities to streamflow decrease varied with different stages. During impact period I, human activities was accountable for 54.3% of the streamflow decrease. In impact period II, climate variability was responsible for 64.9%, and about 8.3 mm of baseflow was extracted from the stream on average based on the comparison of the observed streamflow and simulated baseflow. The results in this study could provide necessary information for water resources management in the watershed.