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Drivers and extent of surface water occurrence in the Selenga River Delta, Russia
Citation:
Aminjafari, S., I. Brown, S. Chalov, M. Simard, C. Lane, J. Jarsjo, M. Darvishi, AND F. Jaramillo. Drivers and extent of surface water occurrence in the Selenga River Delta, Russia. Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies. Elsevier B.V., Amsterdam, Netherlands, 38:100945, (2021). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejrh.2021.100945
Impact/Purpose:
The Selenga River provides roughly 65% of the water to Lake Baikal, Russia. The past 35 years of flow through the Selenga River Delta into Lake Baikal has seen many changes. This study shows that surface water occurrence has decreased by 51% over the period, possibly due to climate change in the managed lake basin as well as throughout the Selenga River watershed.
Description:
Study region Selenga River Delta (SRD), Russia. Study focus How is water occurrence changing in the SRD, and what are the hydroclimatic drivers behind these changes? The presence of water on the surface in river deltas is governed by land use, geomorphology, and the flux of water to and from the Delta. We trained an accurate image classification of the Landsat satellite imagery during the last 33 years to quantify surface water occurrence and its changes in the SRD. After comparing our estimations with global-scale datasets, we determined the hydrological drivers of these changes. New hydrological insights for the region We find mild decreases in water occurrence in 51% of the SRD's surface area from 1987–2002 to 2003–2020. Water occurrence in the most affected areas decreased by 20% and in the most water-gaining areas increased by 10%. We find a significant relationship between water occurrence and runoff (R2 = 0.56) that does not exist between water occurrence and suspended sediment concentration (SSC), Lake Baikal's water level, and potential evapotranspiration. The time series of water occurrence follows the peaks in the runoff but not its long-term trend. However, the extremes in SSC do not influence surface water occurrence (R2 < 0.1), although their long-term trends are similar. Contrary to expected, we find that the Delta has a relatively stable long-term water availability for the time being.
URLs/Downloads:
DOI: Drivers and extent of surface water occurrence in the Selenga River Delta, Russia
PubMed Central Link to Manuscript