Impact of agricultural development on variation in surface runoff in arid regions: a case of the Aksu River Basin

Located in the south of Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region,the Tarim River is the longest inland river in China.Agricultural development,excessive exploitation and low surface water use efficiency in the headstream regions have led to a marked decrease in the water supply to the mainstream.This,in turn,has resulted in the drying-up of the watercourse in the lower reaches of the Tarim River and serious deterioration of the eco-environment.The Aksu River Basin,the most important headstream of the Tarim River,was selected as the research area in this study.Taking elastic coefficient,water demand coefficient and water utilization intensity as the indices,we studied the impact of agricultural development on decreasing surface runoff since the 1950s.The results indicated that(1) the increasing rate of consumption of surface runoff outstripped the rate of increase measured in the natural catchment discharge,resulting in ever diminishing stream discharge into the Tarim River.Agricultural irrigation and seepage loss in irrigation canal systems were the major sources for runoff consumption,taking 63.72% of the overall runoff consumption.What’s more,agricultural water consumption took up more than 97% of the water used for long-term production;(2) the expansion of cultivated land,change of planting structure and comparatively low agricultural irrigation efficiency all contributed to the decrease in surface runoff of the Aksu River.The elasticity coefficient of surface runoff reduction corresponding to the increase in planted area was 0.34 in the 1950s,while in the 2000s it had increased to 7.87.This reflected a more sensitive response of runoff decrease to cultivated land expansion.The increase in cotton and fruit production,without widely-used scientific irrigation methods and water-saving technology,led to considerable waste of the water resources.Meanwhile,the irrigation efficiency was still quite low,characterized by the waste of water resources,and the decrease of surface runoff;(3) in different stages,cultivated land area,planting structure and agricultural water use efficiency exerted different effects on runoff decrease.In the early stage,agricultural development showed no obvious effect on runoff decrease.Since the 1960s,the expansion in cultivated land resulted in large consumption of surface runoff;since the 1990s,not only expansion in cultivated land expansion,but also planting structure exerted significant impact on the consumption of surface runoff.Recently,though agricultural water use efficiency has improved in some regions to reduce the consumption of runoff to a certain extent,overall agricultural water use efficiency is still quite low;(4) during the investigation period,water consumption by agricultural development reflected the unbalanced relationship between human activities and water resources.