Glacier meltwater has limited contributions to the total runoff in the major rivers draining the Tibetan Plateau
The Tibetan Plateau is the headwaters of several major river basins, but uncertainties exist in the estimated contributions of glacial melt and groundwater to runoff. We present a new tracer-aided glacio-hydrological model constrained by multiple datasets for five major river basins of the Tibetan Plateau. We show that the contribution of glacier melt to the annual runoff is less than 5% in all the five basins at the outlets—much less than previous estimates. Our secondary finding is that the partitioning between surface runoff and groundwater flow varied greatly across the watersheds, with groundwater runoff contributing 35–75% of the annual runoff. The contribution of glacier melt has a strong spatial variability and scale dependency, but the population heavily dependent on it is limited, so a potential significant decrease in water resources due to glacier shrinkage is not a problem that should raise public worries in the Tibetan Plateau.
Authors
- Yi Nan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5117-1473)
- Guangheng Ni (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7752-510X)
- Songjun Han (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3068-519X)
- Kunbiao Li
- Lide Tian (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8866-7744)
- Jeffrey J. McDonnell (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3880-3162)
- Xinghui Xia (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8663-6346)
- Fuqiang Tian (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9414-7019)
- Ting Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0892-7831)
- Zongxing Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2870-7027)
- Denghua Yan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8802-7421)
Institutions
- Ludong University (CN)
- Yunnan University (CN)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- North China University of Water Resources and Electric Power (CN)
- Peking University (CN)
- Beijing Normal University (CN)
- University of Saskatchewan (CA)
- China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research (CN)
- Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources (CN)
- Ministry of Water Resources of the People's Republic of China (CN)
- Global Institute for Water Security (CA)
- University of Birmingham (GB)
- Tsinghua University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- npj Climate and Atmospheric Science
- Published
- 2025-04-25
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-025-01060-6
- Citations
- 18
- Primary Topic
- Cryospheric studies and observations
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 23.41
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- China Postdoctoral Science Foundation