AIM Interim Report(1999 - 2000)

March, 2000
China Project Team of AIM/IMPACT Model

Commission for Integrated Survey of Natural Resources(CISNAR)The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) P.O.Box 9717, Beijing 100101,China
Telephone: 86-10-64889268 Telex: 86-10-64854230

Interim Report for Fiscal
Year 1999
byCISNAR Team
March 18, 2000

1. Improvement of Multiannual average-basedhydrological Model2. Analysis on theCountermeasures to
Climatic Disasters in China

3.

Data Collection(1) Digitized China county boundary map (1995)
with scale of 1:4 million(2) Digitized Vegetation Regionalization map ofChina(3) Database of the Codes for the administrative
divisions of the People’s Republic of China of1995(4) Codes for the administrative divisions of thePeople’s Republic of China of 1999
(5) Chinese environment regarding data at national,
province, city and industry sectors level in 1998,

(6) Chinese environment status report in 1998
(7) Coefficient Notebook of Production andDischarge of pollutants from industry(8) Chinese water resources status report in 1998
(9) Chinese water supply and demand in 21Century(10) Main crop water requirement and irrigationof China(11) Input-Output Table of China in 1997(12) Forestry data

4. Investigation and Suggestion on
the Input-Output Table data
regarding Water Impact Model inChina- Input/output table- Water consumption data
. no water consumption data exactly matching witheach sector in I/O table. water consumption data

.. agriculture.. industry.. residential.. water consumption.. per capita.. per GDP.. per mu.. per person.. per unit industry output.

- Suggestion
To construct water input/output table based on
the national or provincial I/O table of 1997.
(1)Water consumption data processing
Only agricultural water consumption, industries
water consumption, and residential water
constipation is available, they do not match withsectors in input/output table. Therefore, dataneed to be processed based on the judgement of
the experts from each sector to meet therequirement in I/O table (at least 6 sectors).

(2)Combination of some sectors
For to satisfy the data requirement, some sectors
need to be combined.
(3)Study area selection
First select a city (or province), which isshortage in water, for example, Beijing or Gansu,
as case study area, then to whole China.

5. Data Set Regarding Global
Change Study in Center for earth
Science Data and Information
Network (CESDIN)- Geographical data
(1) China administration map at the scale of
1:1M in provincial level, district level andcounty level,(2) Map of China and its laboring countries atscale of 1:1M. Information of river system, roadsystem, railway system, location ofadministration headquarter of counties andcontour line were included (China Digital Map,version 1)(3) The fourth population census and rural
economic statistical data at the scale of 1:1M incounty level, 1990(4) Provincial level economy statistical data at
the scale of 1:1M in county level (1990, 1991).

- Attribute Data
Totally, there are about 300 tables with over 4000
items in China natural resources database.
(1) Water resources data,(2) land resources data
(3) forestry resources data
(4) Other information related to NaturalResources(5) Climate data
. Monthly mean value from 1951 – 1980
. Monthly value from 1951-1995, year by year

(6) Population and labor.
. Data from 4 times population census. Data from statistic for each province, each county,year by year. Estimated Data from population research(7) Social economic statistical data at national,provincial level, from 1949-1998, year by year
(8) Agricultural statistical data, over 100 items from1980, 1984-1997,year by year(9) Environmental data at provincial and citylevel, 1981-1998,year by year

- Remotely sensed data
(1) NDVI (every 5 days) of 1999
(2) Monthly NDVI of 1999
(3) NDVI of Chinese NongLi (every 15 days) of1999(4) NOAA-AVHRR data (every 5 days) of 1999
(5) NOAA-AVHRR data (monthly) of 1999
(6) NOAA-AVHRR data (every 15 days,according to Chinese NongLi) of 1999

- Environmental Regulation and Law Data
All national and provincial environmental
regulations, laws, and international treaties, which
China signed since 1949, were collected.
(1) Regulation and Law of China Resources andEnvironment (version 1), including 30 international
treaties, 1949-1999(2) Regulation and Law of China Resources andEnvironment (version 1), including 30 national
regulations and laws, 1949-1999(3) Regulation and Law of China Resources andEnvironment (version 1), including 29 local
regulations and laws, 1949-1999

Hydrological Impacts of
Climate Change in China
1. Introduction
2. Hydrological Model Scheme

Figure 1 Hydrological Model Scheme3. Developed sub-models(1) Evaporation model: quantitatively describing
the potential evapotranspiration and actual
evaporation process in each unit basin;(2) Soil water model: representing the dynamics
of soil water;(3) Runoff model: representing surface, groundand snowmelt runoff processes.

4. Used Data Sets for each basin(1) Hydrological data: basin area, elevation,
geographiclocation,
rivergradient,precipitation, runoff, evaporation etc.
(2) Meteorological data: temperature, humidity,wind speed, sunshine hours, pressure etc.
(3) Soil data: soil type, field water holding
capacity etc.
(4) Vegetation data: vegetation type etc.

5. Climate change scenarios
The average of climate change scenarios fortemperature and precipitation from 11 different
GCMs is used to assess the hydrological impactsof climate change over the unit basins in China.
The GCM outputs are interpolated into 0.5o × 0.5ogrid data.

6. Results
According to the GCM climate change outputs, underdoubled CO2, the annual average temperature isexpected to increase by 30 percent while theprecipitation might decrease by 5.8 percent overChina. Regionally, northeast, Huaihe and the coastal
southeast areas are likely to experience the decreasein precipitation, while North China, Yangtze Riverand some of the inland rivers are likely to have more
precipitation. The results for the 77 Level II basinssuggest:Evaporation: Evaporation will
increase in most areas in China (Fig. 2)
especially in March to November inSouth China and Qin-Tibet Plateau (Fig.
3, Fig. 4.), where the evaporation will
increase 40mm for each 3 months.

Runoff: The patterns of runoffchanges vary from region to region while
the national annual runoff will decline (Fig.
5). The typical region of runoff decrease isSouth China. Where the annual runoff
decrease is more than 100mm. While in
Qin-Tibet Plateau, runoff will increase over
5mm and a slight runoff increase will takeplace in northwest region.

- The runoff distribute in different
seasons in a year were showed in Fig. 6and Fig. 7.

7. Monthly Runoff in
Some typical Basin underDoubled CO2
Fig 9 shows Monthly Runoff in Some typicalBasin under Doubled CO2.

Huaihe Basin
Climate change will impose more profound
impacts in this basin. Precipitation will
decline by 2.9 percent while evaporation
increases by 12.1 percent. The annual runoff is
expected to reduce over 20 percent .

8. Impacts of Changes
in Hydrological Cycle
The balance of the various impacts suggests thatclimate change will mainly impose negative effects
on the national economy in China. As for HuaiheBasin, the runoff decrease in spring and summer
implies that this area will experience more severe
droughts.

The predicted runoff increases the upper andmiddle reaches of the Yangtze River and most of
the western basins might benefit the regionaldevelopment. Runoff decrease during the flood
season in some basins (e.g. Heilongjiang, Liaohe,Huanghe, Changjiang) may also benefit theannual flood control practices. Nevertheless,runoff reduction will worsen the already acutewater scarcity problem in China.

Analysis on theCountermeasures to
Climatic Disastersin China

BackgroundStudies on the impacts of global warming onhydrology and water resources reveal that, over thepast 20 years, due to the increase in global meansurface temperature, the global water cycle has been
intensified and the global mean precipitation has been
increasing, which has led to more frequent floods.
Based on the existing studies, this paper summarizes
the major causes of the 1998 Yangtze River Flood,
and analyses the countermeasures to address climatic
disasters in China.

1. Major Causes ofthe 1998 Yangtze River
Extraordinary Flood
The relevant researches concluded that thecauses of the 1998 Yangtze River Floodlie in the following two aspects:

1.1 Abnormal Climate
In 1998, China experienced an abnormal climate. Due to theintensified El Nino, during the main flood season, Yangtze Riverhad frequent and intense rainfall of wide coverage and long
duration; Rain season came earlier with heavy precipitation inSonghuajiang. Historical data show, every next year of the El
Nino, in the summer, there are two bands of strong rainfall inChina. One of them is located in the Yangtze River and the areas
to the south. The other one is in the northern part. With globalwarming, sea temperature in the eastern Atlantic Ocean isrelatively high, which leads to more frequent El Nino events. The
strongest El Nino of the 20th century occurred in the May of 1997,
peaked at the end of the same year, and ended in the June of 1998.
This extraordinarily strong El Nino is one of the major causes
leading to the excess rainfall in the Yangtze River in the summerof 1998.

The increasing accumulation of snow inthe Plateau Area where the Yangtze Riveroriginates is a key contribution to theextraordinarily strong summer rainfall in theYangtze River and the south area.
According to the climate theory, while there is excess
snow accumulation in the Europe-Asia and QinghaiTibet Plateau in the winter and spring, East Asia
Monsoon generally delays with a weaker summer
monsoon, the main rain band moves southwards andthere is excess rainfall in the Yangtze River.

Abnormal Asian middle latitudal
circulation and active blocking high-pressure
ridges provided the cold airs for the long lastingstrong rainfall in the Yangtze River.
Abnormal west Atlantic sub-tropical highpressure is an important contributor to thelocation and intensity of rain belts in China .
During the June-August of 1998, due to the west
Atlantic sub-tropical high-pressure, storm weather
frequently occurred in middle reaches. It lead to thewater level in the middle and lower reaches of the River
kept rising.

1.2 Human activities
The degradation of natural environment induced
from human activities reduced the resilience of theenvironment to sudden extreme events like floods.
This is another important factor leading to the 1998
extraordinary flood. Human activities include
deforestation, conversion of lake into cropland andconstruction of water projects.

-Degradation of ecological environment•Unlimited deforestation
In early 1950s, most of the upper reach of the River
had good vegetation. But over the last few decades,
several large scale deforestation has drasticallyreduced the forestry vegetation. Forestry cover ratein the upper reach has declined from 30~40 % in theearly 1950s to only about 10% in 1998. Such
unlimited deforestation makes the vulnerable
forestry ecological resources impossible to properly
regulate the river runoff.

•Expansion of soil erosion
The direct result of deforestation is the expansionof soil erosion in the mountainous areas. Survey
results suggest that, due to soil erosion, theriverbed of the main stream of Yangtze River isincreasing at the rate of 1 meter per 10 years.
Therefore, unlimited deforestation and soil erosion
will inevitably result in the silt accumulation in thewater bodies, rising of riverbed and decrease instorage capacity.

- Conversion of lake into cropland
Many lakes along the middle and lower reaches ofYangtze River are connected with rivers and areimportant to regulate the river runoff. However, due tothe natural evolution, silt accumulation and conversion
into cropland, many lakes along the middle and lower
reaches of the River are rapidly shrinking and evenvanishing. Statistics show in the past 30 years, 12,000
square kilometers of lake area, an area even more thanfour times of the current Dongting Lake, has been
converted into cropland in Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi, Anhuiand Jiangsu. In only Hubei Province, lake area has
shrink by 6000 square kilometers.

- Illegal construction on the river shore
The rapid expansion of rural factory and population
growth along the middle and lower reaches of the River,construction of tens of thousand of industrial andresidential building and dykes severely restrained flood
diversion.
From what discussed above, it is clear that the 1998
extraordinary flood lies in both of natural and humancauses. Although the abnormal climate and intensified
rainfall are out of our control, the human causes, inparticular, unlimited deforestation, conversion of lake into
cropland and illegal constructions aggravated the severityof the Flood.

2.

Losses Caused by the 1998 Flood

Although the total losses from this Flood are not as bad as
the other two extraordinary floods (in 1931 and 1954), due
to the extremely important location of the Yangtze River interm of economic development level, this Flood caused
enormous losses. … 1075 villages along the main streamof the River, Dongting Lake and Boyang Lake were burst
during the Flood. Totally 321,000 hectares of land wereinundated, among which 197,000 hectares were cultivatedland. The Flood affected a population of 2.29 million.
According to an incomplete statistics, the Flood caused aloss of 2000 lives and an economic loss of 200 billion Yuan.

3. Countermeasures to Address
Emergent Climatic Disasters
The 1998 Yangtze River Extraordinary Floodcaused enormous losses to Chinese people.
However, it also trained the people andenhanced the ability to combat again and getwell prepared for the climatic disasters.

3.1 Countermeasures in thecourse of floods
During the extraordinary floods, the central Chinese
government targeted at ensuring the safety of themain dyke of Yangtze River, the big cities along theRiver, and the lives of the people, and decided tomobilize the military force so that the military andcivil forces could battle jointly again the Flood.

-Well prepared and comprehensively
planned-Unified commanding and correct decisionmaking
In the whole course of flood relief, the central
government and the Communist Party paid
consistently close attention to the flooding situationand the safety of the people in the flooding areas.
The government leaders went to the flooding areain person and directly involved in the battle.

-Military-civil joint efforts
During the Flood, water level on quite a few partsof the dyke exceeded the designed level. More than
9000 emergencies occurred along the main streamof the River. In those key moments, the army
played an extremely important role.

-Concerted efforts and Comprehensive FloodControl
During the flood relief in 1998, all sectors tookflood control as the highest priority, fully supporting
the flood relief activities. Also, other countries,international organizations, foreign companies andindividuals gave a great help.

-Scientific management
In the course of the flood fighting, 763 large- and mediumsized reservoirs were involved in flood blocking. 34000
million cubic meters of flood was held by these reservoirs.
The hydraulic agencies at all levels paid close attention toand carefully analyzed the flooding situation. Floodcontrol schemes were worked out in time. The weather
agencies provided timely weather forecasts, scientificallysupporting the flood control practices. Experts fromvarious areas, engineers and technicians played significant
roles as well. They conducted scientific analysis andjudgement, successfully handled lots of emergencies andguaranteed the safety of the people抯 lives and properties.

-Flood control in accordance with the law
On the critical occasion of flood control, Jiangxi,Hunan, Jiangsu, and Anhui Provinces had declared toenter into emergent flood control state according to
the flood Control Law”.
The flood control
commanding departments had in accordance with theLaw expropriated flood control materials and tools,
cleared the barriers on the flood route, and strictly
penalized the people who had neglected on theirduties of flood control. It had been proved that theFlood Control Law played an important role in theflood control in 1998.

- Timely supply of disaster relief and hygienic
and sanitary service, reassurance of daily life offlood victims
Governments at all levels paid particularattention to the disaster relief and hygienicservice. Food, clothes, accommodation andhygienic service were provided to flood victims.

3.2 Post-disaster reconstruction to ensure
the safely handling of future emergent climate
eventsAlthough we cannot do much to control the climate
anomalies, it is possible to mitigate the impacts of humanactivities on ecological environment, take effective actions
to properly handle emergencies and minimize the losses.
After the 1998 Extraordinary Flood, Chinese government
paid extremely important attention to the post-disasterreconstruction. It urged to further strengthen the hydraulicconstructions, insisting on the policies of overall planningand incorporation of flood control and drought prevention.

-Afforestation, soil conservation and improving
the ecological environment
Special efforts should be made to improve theecological environment in the areas where thesituation is serious. Area of grassland and vegetation
should be enlarged and recovered. Taking small basin
as basic unit, mountain, waterway, cropland, forest
and road should be systematically planned andcomprehensively harnessed. Engineering measures
should be incorporated with biological and water, soil
conservation planting means, so as to formulate a soiland water integrated conservation system.

-Clearing the barriers to flood diversion,
returning cropland back to lakes, building up
new towns for flood victims and safety
construction in flood storage areas
Dykes and embankments burst during the floods
should be cleared up to recover the capacity of floodtransferring and storage. Based on the current
situation, residents in the flood storage areas should
be properly settled through building up safe areas,
safe stages and migrating towns.

-Enhancing and strengthening the existing
dykes and embankments
Enhancing and strengthening the existing dykes andembankments should take the priority of harnessing
the rivers and lakes. Trough the implementation of
integrated flood control measures, dykes andembankments are expected to defend the worst
floods since the foundation of PRC, while some key
sections should be able to defend the floods
occurring once every 100 years. New technologies,
new materials and new processes are encouraged tobe applied, so as to ensure the quality of flood
control engineering projects.

-Speeding up the construction of river controlling
projects
As for those rivers with frequent floods but nocontrolling projects, main and branch reservoirs should
be urgently constructed, with accordance to theintegrated basin plan. Reservoirs in incomplete anddangerous conditions should be strengthened.
-Strengthening the harnessing of river courses
River course and burst embankments in the lower reachof the Yangtze River should be harnessed. River
sections where silt accumulation affected the smooth
flow of floodwater should be cleaned up.

-Improving the technology level of flood
control and enhancing the investment inscience and technology
After the Flood, Chinese Government decided togradually establish a flood control commanding
system which covers the key flood control areas all
across China in the coming five years, strengthen thescientific research on flood control, organize studies
on flood relief technology, dyke infiltration-proof
technology and potential problem detection
technology, research and produce urgently needed
and practical new equipment and material for floodcontrol, and to establish a modern flood relief team.

The impacts on human society imposed by global
warming are diverse. Though it requires further researchon the linkage between the 1998 Extraordinary Flood in
China and global climate change, the following two points
should draw the attention of the scientists engaged in
global climate change: first, in addition to the change
scenarios of global mean climate and the adaptation tothese mean changes, efforts should be also made to
examine the regional and extreme climate events. Second,
the impacts of human activities on ecological environment
should be incorporated into the research on climatechange impacts, so as to work out the countermeasures tomitigate or avoid the adverse impacts of human activities
and minimize the impacts of emergent climate events.

The End