Responses of runoff to climate change and human activities in the Ebinur Lake Catchment, western China

Based on hydrological and climatic data covering the period from 1961 to 2008, this paper studies the hydrological responses to climate change and to human activities in the Ebinur Lake Catchment. The results show that the annual runoff of three rivers in Ebinur Lake Catchment exhibited different change trends. Specifically, in Jinghe River and Kuytun River exhibited a slightly increasing trend, but an adverse trend in Bortala River, and the variation trend has been the most dramatic since the mid-1990s. The observed variation in the runoff was resulted from the elevated alpine precipitation, rather than rising temperature, and that precipitation is a major factor for runoff generation. The runoff CAR model proposed by this paper can be used to predict the annual runoff in three rivers, and demonstrated annual runoff in Bortala River and Jinghe River will display an increased trend, while a less decreasing trend in Kuytun River under the climate change scenarios of warm-humid variation. In addition, the exploitation of the area of cultivated land led to more water resources consumption, primarily for agriculture irrigation, is the cause of the persistently ecoenvironment degradation, which have reached in a critical state thus, a more pressing concern is the development a scientifically reasonable and administratively practical water resource management scheme.