Cascading Impacts of Asian Water Tower Change on Downstream Water Systems

Authors

TANG Qiuhong, Key Laboratory of Water Cycle and Related Land Surface Processes, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
LIU Xingcai, Key Laboratory of Water Cycle and Related Land Surface Processes, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
ZHOU Yuanyuan, Key Laboratory of Water Cycle and Related Land Surface Processes, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
WANG Jie, Key Laboratory of Water Cycle and Related Land Surface Processes, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
YUN Xiaobo, Key Laboratory of Water Cycle and Related Land Surface Processes, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China

Keywords

Asian Water Tower; Tibetan Plateau; downstream; water resources; cascading impacts

Document Type

Article

Abstract

The "Asian Water Tower (AWT)" is an important water source for downstream Asian countries. The cascading impacts on water resources caused by changes of the AWT are closely associated with the water security for billions of people downstream. The changes of the AWT plays a key role in achieving the sustainable development goals in the downstream regions set by the United Nation General Assembly. In the context of global change, the intensity of water resources development and utilization in downstream rivers has continuously increased, and water resource issues have risen in prominence. The changes of the AWT have brought new challenges to water management in the downstream regions. Environmental changes of the AWT have caused extreme events such as the abrupt changes of discharge from the AWT and glacial lake outbursts, resulted in water supply and floods risks in downstream river basins, affected water supply, flood control, and water environment in the downstream regions. By analyzing the impact of changes of the AWT on the downstream systems and the related research gap, suggestions are made to strengthen integrated study of environmental change of the AWT and water security in the downstream, to advance integrated watershed modeling techniques for the whole basins, and to explore the linkages between the upstream alpine area and downstream water systems. There is an urgent need to understand the cascading impacts of the AWT change on downstream water systems, and to cope with the impacts of the AWT change.

First page

1306

Last Page

1312

Language

Chinese

Publisher

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences

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Recommended Citation

Qiuhong, TANG; Xingcai, LIU; Yuanyuan, ZHOU; Jie, WANG; and Xiaobo, YUN (2019) "Cascading Impacts of Asian Water Tower Change on Downstream Water Systems," Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version): Vol. 34 : Iss. 11 , Article 11.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.16418/j.issn.1000-3045.2019.11.013
Available at: https://bulletinofcas.researchcommons.org/journal/vol34/iss11/11