Future snow changes and their impact on the upstream runoff in Salween

Abstract

Understanding the hydrological processes related to snow in global mountainous regions under climate change is necessary for achieving regional water and food security (e.g., the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals 2 and 6). However, the impacts of future snow changes on the hydrological processes in the high mountains of the “Third Pole” are still largely unclear. In this study, we aimed to project future snow changes and their impacts on hydrology in the upstream region of the Salween River (USR) under two shared socioeconomic pathway (SSP) scenarios (SSP126 and SSP585) using a physically based cryosphere–hydrology model. We found that the climate would become warmer (0.2 ∘C per decade under SSP126 and 0.7 ∘C per decade under SSP585) and wetter (5 mm per decade under SPP126 and 27.8 mm per decade under SSP585) in the USR in the future under these two SSPs. In this context, the snowfall, snow cover, snow water equivalent, and snowmelt runoff are projected to exhibit significant decreasing trends during 1995–2100, and the decreases are projected to be most prominent in summer and autumn. The future (2021–2100) snowmelt runoff is projected to significantly increase in spring compared with the reference period (1995–2014), which would benefit the availability of water resources in the growing season. The annual total runoff would significantly increase in all of the future periods due to increased rainfall, which would increase the availability of water resources within the basin, but the high peak flow that occurs in summer may cause rain flooding with short duration and high intensity. Compared with the reference period (the contribution of snowmelt runoff to the total runoff was determined to be 17.5 %), the rain- and snow-dominated pattern of runoff would shift to a rain-dominated pattern after the near term (2021–2040) under SSP585, whereas it would remain largely unchanged under SSP126. Climate change would mainly change the pattern of the snowmelt runoff, but it would not change the annual hydrograph pattern (dominated by increased rainfall). These findings improve our understanding of the responses of cryosphere–hydrological processes under climate change, providing valuable information for integrated water resource management, natural disaster prevention, and ecological environmental protection at the Third Pole.