The heterogeneity of hydrometeorological changes during the period of 1961-2016 in the source region of the Yellow River, China

Runoff in the source region of a river makes up most of water resources in the whole basin in arid and semi-arid areas. It is very important for water resources management to timely master the latest dynamic changes of the runoff and quantitatively reveal its main driving factors. This paper aims to discover the variation heterogeneity of runoff and the impacts of climatic factors on this runoff in the source region of the Yellow River (SRYR) in China from 1961 to 2016. We divided SRYR into four sub-regions, and analyzed changes of their contributions to total runoff in SRYR. We also revealed the im-pacts of precipitation, temperature and potential evapotranspiration on runoff in each sub-region by constructing the regression relationships between them at multiple temporal scales. The changes of runoff in the four sub-regions and their contributions to the total runoff were not exactly consistent. The climatic variables changes also have heterogeneity, and runoff was mainly affected by precipitation compared to influences of temperature or potential evapotranspiration. Their impacts on runoff have spatiotemporal heterogeneity and can be reflected by very significant-linear regression equations. It provided a simple method to predict headwater runoff for better water management in the whole basin.