Diagnosis of Current and Future Shifting of Hydrological Regimes of the Changing Upper Salween and Mekong River Basins

English Abstract:

The upper Salween and Mekong River Basins,  flowing parallel from cold mount glacial primitive area to warm cultivation area through Tibet-Yunnan Plateau, is one of the most sensitive areas to global climate change. It is also data scarce. By detail simulation with Vegetation Interface Processes (VIP) model, co-run Hydro-Information Modelling System (HIMS),with detail field investigation to determine parameters,  daily water availability and water demand by vegetation are obtained from 1981 to 2012. It is shown that seasonal patterns of discharge within the cold region are more similar to each other than the patterns within the basin. The increasing rate of temperature in the cold region is much higher than that in the warm region. The rate in recent years is much higher than that in previous years. The cold region is drier than the warm region. Over the next 20 or 50 years, there is a tendency that dry cold region will become wetter and wet warm region will be drier. Understanding of and predictive capacity for the dynamics of the twin cold regions processes and systems will be helpful to provide scientific suggestions, such as to local people living in downstream comparatively to adopt suitable and different adaptation countermeasures to possible climate change.