Will vegetation restoration affect the supply-demand relationship of water yield in an arid and semi-arid watershed?

Yongkun Luo; Lei Wu; Ruowen Wang; Xueting Wang; Bailin Du; Shijie Pang

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.178292

Will vegetation restoration affect the supply-demand relationship of water yield in an arid and semi-arid watershed?

Sci Total Environ. 2025 Jan 3:959:178292. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.178292. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Yongkun Luo¹, Lei Wu², Ruowen Wang¹, Xueting Wang¹, Bailin Du¹, Shijie Pang¹

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Agricultural Soil and Water Engineering in Arid and Semiarid Areas, Ministry of Education, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, PR China; College of Water Resources and Architectural Engineering, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, PR China.
² Key Laboratory of Agricultural Soil and Water Engineering in Arid and Semiarid Areas, Ministry of Education, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, PR China; State Key Laboratory of Soil Erosion and Dryland Farming on the Loess Plateau, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, PR China; College of Water Resources and Architectural Engineering, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, PR China. Electronic address: lwu@nwsuaf.edu.cn.

PMID: 39754940
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.178292

Abstract

Natural processes, combined with human activities, determine the inherent quality of regional water supply and demand. However, the interaction between artificial vegetation restoration and water supply-demand dynamics remains insufficiently understood, particularly in arid and semi-arid regions. This study focuses on the Jinghe River Basin (JRB) in the central Loess Plateau, aiming to investigate the changes in supply and demand of ecosystem water yield services and analyze factors affecting the water supply-demand relationship during the vegetation restoration, using the InVEST model, scenario analysis, and the Geodetector. The key findings are as follows: (1) Water shortages in the basin are concentrated in the southern and northern areas, while the southwestern and central areas exhibit water surpluses. Between 2000 and 2020, the water supply showed a first decline and then increase trend, whereas water demand exhibited an opposite trend, with 2009 and 2013 as turning points, respectively. These changes mitigated the basin's water scarcity. (2) Assuming constant meteorological factors and fixed water use indicators, water supply in the vegetation restoration areas decreased by 47.4 million m³, but water demand decreased by 89 million m³, indicating that vegetation restoration did not threaten human water availability. (3) Water supply is primarily influenced by meteorological factors, while water demand and the water supply-demand ratio (WSDR) are mainly driven by socio-economic factors. The influence of precipitation on water yield (q = 0.69) outweighs that of land use (q = 0.14), indicating that the reduction in water yield due to vegetation restoration is offset by the increased precipitation. This study provides insights into the spatiotemporal dynamics of water yield services and the relationship between vegetation restoration and water supply-demand in the arid and semi-arid regions.

Keywords: Arid and semi-arid region; Impact analysis; Spatial distribution; Vegetation restoration; Water supply-demand.