Shengtian Yang

and 9 more

With the intensification of climate change and population growth, human-water relationships (HWR) have changed from the simple utilization of water resources to changing the spatial distributions and distribution proportions of water resources through formulating corresponding policies, such as Chinese ecological civilization policy. However, the impact of the ecological civilization policy on the evolution of HWR is still unclear. Here, taking the 600-year old “Tunpu” area as a typical study area, this research analyses the evolution of HWR over different space and time spans based on the Remote Sensing Hydrological Station (RSHS) technology, an improved water balance formula and the transition theory. The results show that at the village scale, the water cycle structure of a typical village has remained stable, and deforestation has increased the proportion of runoff to precipitation by 10.62%. At the basin scale, due to land use/cover changes and precipitation fluctuations, the trend of the runoff changes from slowly decreasing to accelerated increases, with change rate increasing from -0.073×104 m3·a-1 in the Ming Dynasty (1470-1636) to 30.946×104 m3·a-1 in the China stage (1949-2020). HWR have developed from the initial balanced resource-rich period to the unbalanced extensive-development period and have finally changed into a rebalancing period under the influence of the ecological civilization policy. Four stages of HWR are as follows: predevelopment (1470-1685), take off (1685-1912), acceleration (1912-2000) and rebalancing (2000-2020). This research indicates that the ecological civilization policy can rebuild HWR, and it is expected to provide enlightenment for future construction of the ecological civilization.