Impacts of Urbanization on Water Cycle in Weihe River Basin

The natural water cycle and the land use/cover are affected by the urbanization. It is important to quantitatively analyze the urbanization effects on water cycle. The response of the streamflow to the urbanization in the whole watershed level is analyzed, which is based on the simulations of the distributed hydrological model. In the study of the Weihe River Basin, the changes of the streamflow are linear to the urban areas, which is 173,000 m(3) per km(2). The distribution of the urban locations in the watershed and the rainfall are the two factors that affect the streamflow increments. If the urban regions are located along the main rivers and closed to the outlet, or the urban regions cluster to each other, it will bring more streamflow increments. The monthly rainfulls are also linear to the effects of the urbanization on streamflow increments, i.e. the more rainfull the more streamflow increments.