Channel morphological activation of large braided rivers in response to
climate-driven water and sediment flux change in the Qinghai-Tibet
Plateau
Abstract
With the rising air temperature and precipitation, water and sediment
flux in the Source Region of the Yangtze River have increased
significantly since 2000. Nonetheless, the response of braided river
morphology to climate-driven water and sediment flux change is still
unknown. Water bodies of nine large braided rivers from 1990 to 2020
were extracted based on Google Earth Engine platform, and impacts of
climate change on activation indices of braided river morphology were
quantified. The main results are presented that a new method of braided
water body extraction by combining Lowpath algorithm and Local Otsu
algorithm is firstly proposed, which reduces 59% of the root mean
squared error of braiding intensity in comparison with the Global Otsu
method. The braiding intensity has a parabolic variation trend with the
water area ratio, and the average sandbar area ratio has a negative
power law trend with the water area ratio. Intra-annual channel
migration intensity has an obvious temporal scale effect, which
increases rapidly when the time span is less than 5 years. The warming
and wetting trend led to vegetation cover increasing significantly. With
the increase of runoff, water area of each braided reach has increased
in both flood and non-flood season. Intra-annual channel migration
intensity shows three different trends of increasing, weakening, and
unchanged over time. The response of migration intensity to climate
warming can be classified into three patterns in the SRYR as follows:
sediment increase constrained pattern, sediment increase dominated
pattern, and runoff increase dominated pattern.