Cui et al. (2025) Multi-model coupled climate-land use-runoff feedback mechanism: analysis and prediction of spatial and temporal heterogeneity in the transboundary watershed of the Tumen River

Identification

• Journal: Applied Water Science
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-11-12
• Authors: Y. D. Cui, Hechun Quan, Weihong Zhu, Ri Jin, Ning Ding, Zili Wang
• DOI: 10.1007/s13201-025-02645-5

Research Groups

• College of Geography and Ocean Sciences, Yanbian University, China
• Northeast Asian Research Center of Transboundary Disaster Risk and Ecological Security, Yanbian University, China

Short Summary

This study developed a multi-model coupled climate-land use-runoff feedback mechanism (M-S-C) to predict annual runoff in the Tumen River Basin from 2025 to 2070, analyzing the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of impacts from climate and land use change, and introducing the Contribution of Transboundary River Volume (CTRV) concept. It found that climate change is a more substantial driver of runoff changes than land use change, with forest and cultivated land being key influencing factors, and revealed divergent runoff contributions between China (decreasing) and North Korea (increasing) due to differing land use policies.

Objective

• To predict the range of annual runoff in the Tumen River Basin from 2025 to 2070 under SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5 climate scenarios.
• To quantify the relative contributions of climate and land use change to runoff and identify dominant land types.
• To systematically compare land use scenarios in China and North Korea, analyzing the differential impacts of development paths on runoff volume and spatiotemporal distribution.
• To develop and apply the Contribution of Transboundary River Volume (CTRV) indicator to quantify the annual average relative contribution ratio of a country or administrative region to the total runoff, providing a basis for water rights allocation and ecological compensation.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Tumen River Basin, Northeast Asia, a transboundary basin shared by China, North Korea, and Russia. The total watershed area is approximately 33,200 square kilometers (China accounts for ~68%, North Korea ~31%).
• Temporal Scale:
  • Prediction period: 2025–2070.
  • Historical data period: Meteorological (2000–2023), Land use (1976–2020), Hydrologic (2005–2016).

Methodology and Data

• Models used:
  • M-S-C coupled model: Mixed Cell Cellular Automata (MCCA) for land use prediction, Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) for hydrological simulation, and Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 6 (CMIP6) for meteorological data.
  • Geodetector q-statistics for analyzing the influence of land use types on runoff.
  • SUFI-2 algorithm (within SWAT-CUP) for SWAT model calibration and validation.
• Data sources:
  • Meteorological data: Daily observations from 8 meteorological stations (2000–2023); daily future meteorological data from six CMIP6 models (CanESM5, FGOALS-g3, GFDL-CM4, IPSL-CM6A-LR, MPI-ESM1-2-HR, MRI-ESM2-0) under SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5 scenarios (2024–2070) from the National Tibetan Plateau Data Center.
  • Land use data: 1976–2020 land use data (90 m resolution) from Landsat8 OLI.
  • Digital Elevation Model (DEM): 30 m spatial resolution from Copernicus DEM (European Space Agency).
  • Soil data: 1 km resolution from Harmonized World Soil Database (HWSD) (FAO/IIASA).
  • Hydrologic data: Measured daily runoff data (2005–2016) from Quanhe Hydrological Station (Yanbian State Water Resources Bulletin).
  • Socioeconomic and geographic data for MCCA: GDP (90 m), population (90 m, WorldPop), slope, elevation, soil type, distance to river, and various roadway data (Open Street Map).

Main Results

• The impact of climate change on runoff is significantly more substantial than that of land use change within the Tumen River Basin.
• Forest land and cultivated land are identified as the predominant land types influencing runoff, with Geodetector q-statistics interpretation rates of 58.21% and 48.85% respectively for 2020.
• The predicted annual runoff volume for the Tumen River Basin from 2025 to 2070 ranges from 83.062 billion cubic meters to 149.696 billion cubic meters.
• Runoff volume shows an increasing trend under both SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5 scenarios, with the SSP5-8.5 scenario exhibiting significantly higher runoff due to higher future forcing (air temperature positively correlated with runoff).
• The Contribution of Transboundary River Volume (CTRV) shows divergent trends:
  • On the Chinese side, CTRV averaged 22.46% (2005–2070) but showed a decreasing trend with a slope of -0.023, indicating a cumulative reduction of approximately 5.9 billion cubic meters by 2070, attributed to afforestation and wetland restoration policies.
  • On the North Korean side, CTRV averaged 3.79% (2005–2070) and exhibited an upward trend with a slope of +0.005, indicating a cumulative additional contribution of approximately 1.3 billion cubic meters by 2070, linked to agricultural expansion and urbanization.
• Policy differences between China and North Korea lead to a reverse evolution of CTRV, intensifying cross-border flood and drought risks.
• Forest restoration can delay flood peaks by 3–6 hours and increase low-flow base flows by 8%, while agricultural expansion in North Korea has caused runoff increases from July to December to reach 2.3 times that of January to June.

Contributions

• Developed a novel multi-model coupled framework (M-S-C) that integrates continuous land use change simulation (MCCA), physical hydrology (SWAT), and multi-climate scenarios (CMIP6), enhancing prediction accuracy and integrating ecological and policy variables into a unified simulation system.
• Introduced the innovative concept of Contribution of Transboundary River Volume (CTRV), which quantifies national-scale 'relative contributions' or 'responsibility' for shared runoff, providing a numerical basis for transboundary water rights negotiations, ecological compensation, and adaptive water management.
• Provided a detailed comparative analysis of land use change and its potential impact on runoff on both sides of China and North Korea within a transboundary basin, highlighting the implications of divergent national policies.
• Offered a replicable and scalable technical paradigm for transboundary river basin management globally, addressing the traditional blind spot of the disconnect between physical processes and institutional design.

Funding

• National Natural Science Foundation of China (42067065, 42471093, U24A20585)

Citation

@article{Cui2025Multimodel,
  author = {Cui, Y. D. and Quan, Hechun and Zhu, Weihong and Jin, Ri and Ding, Ning and Wang, Zili},
  title = {Multi-model coupled climate-land use-runoff feedback mechanism: analysis and prediction of spatial and temporal heterogeneity in the transboundary watershed of the Tumen River},
  journal = {Applied Water Science},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.1007/s13201-025-02645-5},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1007/s13201-025-02645-5}
}