Pearl River Water Discharge and Sediment Load Trends from 1954 to 2018

Long-term hydro-meteorological data from the Pearl River basin from 1954 to 2018 was used by Xing Wei of the Institute of Oceanology to investigate the impact of climate change and human activities. The study quantified significant trends, such as a sediment load decrease of -2.24×10⁴ t/yr from 1989 to 2018 and attributed changes to factors like dam construction and precipitation variation. Results are intended to serve as a reference for resource management in the basin.

Use Cases

• Modeling sediment load trends based on long-term hydro-meteorological data.
• Attributing changes in water discharge to precipitation variation and human activities.
• Analyzing the impact of dam construction and rocky desertification on river sediment dynamics.
• Studying the correlation between ENSO events and inter-annual fluctuations in water and sediment data.

Strengths

• Data spans a long-term period from 1954 to 2018.
• Description provides specific quantified trends, such as a sediment load decrease rate of -2.24×10⁴ t/yr from 1989 to 2018.
• Analysis attributes contributions of climate change (63%) and human activities (37%) to water discharge increases.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

Institute of Oceanology

Collection Method

Analysis of long-term hydro-meteorological data using Mann-Kendall and double mass curve methods.

Time Range

1954 to 2018

Geography

Pearl River basin, southern China