Based on the field investigation, documents and the concept of vulnerability, we developed a set of index system about
vulnerability and adaptive capacity which influenced the ecosystem of Heihe River basin because of climate change. The
index system mainly included two kinds of factors, climate factors and other factors. The climate indicators include
humidity, annual rainfall, yearly temperature, etc; other factors include remote sensing data and socioeconomic materials,
such as annual grassland area change, etc. We utilize the method of Analytic Hierarchy Plan (AHP) to distribute the
weight of each indicator. We calculated quantitatively the vulnerability and adaptive capacity of the ecosystem to climate
change of 9 counties in Heihe River Basin in 2000, this results represent the status quo. According to the GCMs project,
the precipitation will rise by 27%, 19% and 30% when the concentration of CO2 double. The future vulnerability and
adaptive capacity to climate change of the ecosystem of 9 counties in Heihe River Basin when CO2 double were
calculated. The results show: (1)The ecological environment of the Heihe River Basin is incredibly vulnerable, on the
whole, and in different places in the basin, its vulnerable degree is different to some extent. (2)In the whole basin, the
comparatively low vulnerable ecosystem district is the upper reaches of the Heihe River. (3)In 2070, The most
vulnerable district is still the lower reaches of the basin.
In this paper, the variability characteristic and response to climate change of surface water resources, such as glacier,
snow, lake and runoff of rivers in northwest China are analyzed by meteorological, hydrological and remote sensing
data. The results show that the melting water has been increasing while glacier has been thinning and deteriorating along
with global warming. The runoff of rivers that rely primarily on precipitation as water resource has significantly
decreased. However the runoff of rivers originated from mountains shows significant increase as a result of increased
melting water, which dominates the water supply, in addition to increased rainfalls since 80s. The water level of most
lakes in Xinjiang has dramatically been rising and the areas are expanding because of increased rainfalls and melt water,
in contrast to trend of lowering water level and shrinking areas for lakes in Inner Mongolia and Tibetan Plateau.
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