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Increased Water Storage in the Qaidam Basin, the North Tibet Plateau from GRACE Gravity Data

Groundwater plays a key role in maintaining the ecology and environment in the hyperarid Qaidam Basin (QB). Indirect evidence and data from sparse observation wells suggest that groundwater in the QB is increasing but there has been no regional assessment of the groundwater conditions in the entire...

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Autores principales: Jiao, Jiu Jimmy, Zhang, Xiaotao, Liu, Yi, Kuang, Xingxing
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4624714/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26506230
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0141442
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author Jiao, Jiu Jimmy
Zhang, Xiaotao
Liu, Yi
Kuang, Xingxing
author_facet Jiao, Jiu Jimmy
Zhang, Xiaotao
Liu, Yi
Kuang, Xingxing
author_sort Jiao, Jiu Jimmy
collection PubMed
description Groundwater plays a key role in maintaining the ecology and environment in the hyperarid Qaidam Basin (QB). Indirect evidence and data from sparse observation wells suggest that groundwater in the QB is increasing but there has been no regional assessment of the groundwater conditions in the entire basin because of its remoteness and the severity of the arid environment. Here we report changes in the spatial and temporal distribution of terrestrial water storage (TWS) in the northern Tibetan Plateau (NTP) using Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) data. Our study confirms long-term (2003–2012) TWS increases in the NTP. Between 2003 and 2012 the TWS increased by 88.4 and 20.6 km(3) in the NTP and the QB, respectively, which is 225% and 52% of the capacity of the Three Gorges Reservoir, respectively. Soil and water changes from the Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) were also used to identify groundwater storage in the TWS and to demonstrate a long-term increase in groundwater storage in the QB. We demonstrate that increases in groundwater, not lake water, are dominant in the QB, as observed by groundwater levels. Our study suggests that the TWS increase was likely caused by a regional increase in precipitation and a decrease in evaporation. Degradation of the permafrost increases the thickness of the active layers providing increased storage for infiltrated precipitation and snow and ice melt water, which may also contribute to the increased TWS. The huge increase of water storage in the NTP will have profound effects, not only on local ecology and environment, but also on global water storage and sea level changes.
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spelling pubmed-46247142015-11-06 Increased Water Storage in the Qaidam Basin, the North Tibet Plateau from GRACE Gravity Data Jiao, Jiu Jimmy Zhang, Xiaotao Liu, Yi Kuang, Xingxing PLoS One Research Article Groundwater plays a key role in maintaining the ecology and environment in the hyperarid Qaidam Basin (QB). Indirect evidence and data from sparse observation wells suggest that groundwater in the QB is increasing but there has been no regional assessment of the groundwater conditions in the entire basin because of its remoteness and the severity of the arid environment. Here we report changes in the spatial and temporal distribution of terrestrial water storage (TWS) in the northern Tibetan Plateau (NTP) using Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) data. Our study confirms long-term (2003–2012) TWS increases in the NTP. Between 2003 and 2012 the TWS increased by 88.4 and 20.6 km(3) in the NTP and the QB, respectively, which is 225% and 52% of the capacity of the Three Gorges Reservoir, respectively. Soil and water changes from the Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) were also used to identify groundwater storage in the TWS and to demonstrate a long-term increase in groundwater storage in the QB. We demonstrate that increases in groundwater, not lake water, are dominant in the QB, as observed by groundwater levels. Our study suggests that the TWS increase was likely caused by a regional increase in precipitation and a decrease in evaporation. Degradation of the permafrost increases the thickness of the active layers providing increased storage for infiltrated precipitation and snow and ice melt water, which may also contribute to the increased TWS. The huge increase of water storage in the NTP will have profound effects, not only on local ecology and environment, but also on global water storage and sea level changes. Public Library of Science 2015-10-27 /pmc/articles/PMC4624714/ /pubmed/26506230 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0141442 Text en © 2015 Jiao et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Jiao, Jiu Jimmy
Zhang, Xiaotao
Liu, Yi
Kuang, Xingxing
Increased Water Storage in the Qaidam Basin, the North Tibet Plateau from GRACE Gravity Data
title Increased Water Storage in the Qaidam Basin, the North Tibet Plateau from GRACE Gravity Data
title_full Increased Water Storage in the Qaidam Basin, the North Tibet Plateau from GRACE Gravity Data
title_fullStr Increased Water Storage in the Qaidam Basin, the North Tibet Plateau from GRACE Gravity Data
title_full_unstemmed Increased Water Storage in the Qaidam Basin, the North Tibet Plateau from GRACE Gravity Data
title_short Increased Water Storage in the Qaidam Basin, the North Tibet Plateau from GRACE Gravity Data
title_sort increased water storage in the qaidam basin, the north tibet plateau from grace gravity data
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4624714/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26506230
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0141442
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