Impacts of land use changes on groundwater resources in the Heihe River Basin

Land use and land cover changes have a great impact on the regional hydrological process. Based on three periods of remote sensing data from the 1960s and the long-term observed data of groundwater from the 1980s, the impacts of land use changes on the groundwater system in the middle reach of Heihe River Basin in recent three decades are analyzed by the perspective of groundwater recharge and discharge system. The results indicate that with the different intensities of land use changes, the impacts on the groundwater recharge were 2.602 × 10^8 m^3/a in the former 15 years （1969-1985） and 0.218 × 10^8 m^3/a in the latter 15 years （1986-2000）, and the impacts on the groundwater discharge were 2.035 × 10^8 m^3/a and 4.91 × 10^8 m^3/a respectively. When the groundwater exploitation was in a reasonable range less than 3.0 × 10^8 m^3/a, the land use changes could control the changes of regional groundwater resources. Influenced by the land use changes and the large-scale exploitation in the recent decade, the groundwater resources present apparently regional differences in Zhangye region. Realizing the impact of land use changes on groundwater system and the characteristics of spatial-temporal variations of regional groundwater resources would be very important for reasonably utilizing and managing water and soil resources.

Energy Balance of Irrigated Intercropping Field in the Middle Reaches of Heihe River Basin

Based on the experiments conducted in an irrigated intercropping field in Zhangye Oasis in the middle reaches of Heihe River basin in 2004, the characteristics of radiation budget are analyzed. Furthermore, energy balance is cal- culated by using Bowen-Ratio Energy Balance (BREB) method. The results show that the ratio of the absorbed radiation to the incoming short radiation in intercropping crop canopy-soil system is increasing with growing stages, from 0.81 in the initial growing stage (IGS) to 0.86 in the late growing stage (LGS). The net radiation, which is smaller in IGS, in- creases rapidly in the first period of the middle growing stage (MGS) and reaches the maximum value in the second period of MGS. It then somewhat decreases in LGS. The ratio of net radiation to total radiation has a similar trend with the net radiation. In the whole growing stages, latent heat flux, which takes up 70% or so of the net radiation, is the dominant item in energy balance. Sensible heat flux shares 20% of the net radiation and soil heat flux has a percentage of 10%. The characteristics of heat balance vary distinctly in different growing stages. In IGS, the ratios of latent heat flux, sensible heat flux and soil heat flux to net radiation are 44.5%, 23.8% and 31.7% respectively. In MGS, with the in- creasing of latent heat flux and the decreasing of sensible heat flux and soil heat flux, the ratios turn into 84.4%, 6.3% and 9.3%. In LGS, the soil heat flux maintains 0W/m2 or so, and latent heat flux and sensible heat flux take up 61.4% and 38.6% respectively. The energy balance also shows an obvious daily variation characteristic.

EVAPOTRANSPIRATION OF LOW-LYING PRAIRIE WETLAND IN MIDDLE REACHES OF HEIHE RIVER IN NORTHWEST CHINA

Low-lying prairie wetland, which has characteristics of both grassland and wetland, has irreplaceable ecological functions in inland river basins of Northwest China. Owing to its small-scale distribution, so far, the observation and research on it are rare. The estimation of evapotranspiration is significant to ecological and environmental construction, scientific management of pasture and protection of wetland. For studying the evapotranspiration (ET) of low-lying prairie wetland in the middle reaches of the Heihe River, an inland river, in Northwest China, the automatic weather station in Linze Ecological Experimental Station of Lanzhou University (39°15′3″N, 100°03′52″E), Linze, Gansu Province, was selected as a case study. Based on meteorological data collected, Bowen-Ratio Energy Balance (BREB) method was used to calculate the evapotranspiration (ET) of low-lying prairie wetland. The analysis results showed that in a whole year (September 2003 - August 2004), the total ET was 611.5mm and mean daily 1.67mm/d. The ET varied with different growing stages. In non-growing stage (NGS), initial growing stage (IGS), middle growing stage (MGS) and end growing stage (EGS), the ET was 0.57, 2.01, 3.82 and 1.49mm/d, with a percentage of total ET of 18.26%, 9.20%, 61.83% and 10.71% respectively. In March, ET began to increase. But in April, the ET increased most. After that, it increased gradually and got the maximal value in July. From then on, the ET decreased gradually. In September, the ET decreased rapidly. With the ending of growing and the freezing of soil, the ET stopped from the middle of November to February in next year. Hourly ET analysis showed that at 8:00 a.m. (during MGS at 7:00 a.m.), the evapotranspiration began, at 13:00 p.m. got its maximal value and at 19:00 p.m. (during MGS at 20:00 p.m.), the evapotranspiration stopped. The intensity of ET in sunny day was much larger than that in cloudy day in the same growing stage.