River regulation and resilience: An approach for the Yangtze watershed

Abstract

Many studies have focused on analyzing variation characteristics of the watershed resilience based on different indicators, while few efforts have been made to quantificationally evaluate contributions of climatic and anthropogenic factors to the varied resilience. In this study, we investigate changes in the seasonal runoff resilience of the entire Yangtze River basin during 1961–2014 by using a convex model and a resilience indicator (Pi). The MIKE 11HD model and the regression method were adopted to further differentiate effects of climate variations and human activities. Results show that climate variation (especially droughts and floods) and human activities exert negative and positive effects, respectively, and become primary reasons for falling and increasing trends in entire watershed resilience. These impacts grow with time under the gradually intensified climate variability and human activity.