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August–September Runoff Variation in the Kara Darya River Determined from Juniper (Juniperus turkestanica) Tree Rings in the Pamirs‐Alai Mountains, Kyrgyzstan, Back to 1411 CE
Author(s) -
ZHANG Heli,
HE Qing,
CHEN Feng,
CHONTOEV Dogdurbek,
SATYLKANOV Rysbek,
ERMENBAEV Bakytbek,
CHEN Youping
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
acta geologica sinica ‐ english edition
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.444
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1755-6724
pISSN - 1000-9515
DOI - 10.1111/1755-6724.14533
Subject(s) - surface runoff , juniper , hydrology (agriculture) , drainage basin , environmental science , water resources , physical geography , geography , geology , forestry , cartography , ecology , geotechnical engineering , biology
A 606 year runoff reconstruction of the Kara Darya River was developed, based on the tree‐ring width chronology of Turkestan juniper (Juniperus turkestanica) from the Pamir‐Alai Mountains of Kyrgyzstan. Preliminary comparison between the snow cover variation and these climate/runoff reconstructions found that Central Asian snow cover may have strong associations with large‐scale ocean‐atmosphere‐land circulations. The runoff reconstruction demonstrated that instrumental runoff was not representative of runoff over the past 606 years. The drought of the 1960s‐1990s resulted in low runoff levels during the past 50 years; however, this probably does not represent a worst‐case scenario for the Kara Darya because the runoff reconstruction showed additional extremely low runoff prior to the 20th century. The reconstruction will provide a long‐term perspective on runoff variation in the Kara Darya River basin, aid sustainable water resource management and be useful in guiding expectations of future variations and water resource planning.