Local understanding of hydro-climate changes in Mongolia
Date
2012
Authors
Sukh, Tumenjargal, author
Fassnacht, Steven, advisor
Laituri, Melinda, committee member
Fernandez-Gimenez, Maria, committee member
Butters, Greg, committee member
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Abstract
Air temperatures have increased more in semi-arid regions than in many other parts of the world. Mongolia has an arid/semi-arid climate where much of the population is dependent upon the limited water resources, especially herders. This paper combines herder observations of changes in water availability in streams and from groundwater with an analysis of climatic and hydrologic change from station data to illustrate the degree of change of Mongolian water resources. We find that herders' local knowledge of hydro-climatic changes is similar to the station based analysis. However, station data are spatially limited, so local knowledge can provide finer scale information on climate and hydrology. We focus on two regions in central Mongolia: the Jinst soum in Bayankhongor aimag in the desert steppe region and the Ikh-Tamir soum in Arkhangai aimag in the mountain steppe. As the temperatures have increased significantly (more in Ikh-Tamir than Jinst), precipitation amounts have decreased in Ikh-Tamir which corresponds to a decrease in streamflow, in particular, the average annual streamflow and the annual peak discharge. At Erdenemandal (Ikh-Tamir) the number of days with precipitation has decreased while at Horiult (Jinst) it has increased. Herders observed that the amount of precipitation has decreased (71% in Jinst; 100% in Ikh-Tamir) in recent years. The long-term average streamflow of the Tuin River at Jinst has not changed significantly while the herders have seen a depletion of water resources (73% of respondents). The Khoid Tamir River at Ikh-Tamir has seen a statistically significant decline in the average annual streamflow and the annual maximum daily discharge, which was also observed by all herders surveyed.