Key Laboratory of Ecohydrology of Inland River Basin, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, China.
School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.
Sci Total Environ. 2018 Sep 1;635:412-422. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.03.231. Epub 2018 Apr 24.
There is limited quantitative understanding of interactions between human and environmental systems over the millennial scale. We aim to reveal the co-evolutionary dynamics of the human-environment system in a river basin by simulating the water use and net primary production (NPP) allocation for human and environmental systems over the last 2000years in Heihe River basin (HRB) in northwest China. We partition the catchment total evapotranspiration (ET) into ET for human and environmental systems with a social-hydrological framework and estimate the NPP for human and environmental systems using the Box-Lieth model, then classify the co-evolutionary processes of the human-environment system into distinct phases using the rate of changes of NPP over time, and discover the trade-offs or synergies relationships between them based on the elasticity of change of the NPP for humans to the change of NPP for environment. The co-evolutionary dynamics of human-environment system in the HRB can be divided into four periods, including: Phase I (Han Dynasty-Yuan Dynasty): predevelopment characterized by nearly no trade-offs between human and environment; Phase II (Yuan Dynasty-RC): slow agricultural development: characterized by a small human win due to small trade-offs between human and environment; Phase III (RC-2000): rapid agricultural development: characterized by a large human win due to large trade-offs between human and environment, and Phase IV (2000-2010): a rebalance characterized by large human wins with a small-environment win due to synergies, although these occurred very occasionally. This study provides a quantitative approach to describe the co-evolution of the human-environment system from the perspective of trade-offs and synergies in the millennial scale for the first time. The relationships between humans and environment changed from trade-off to synergy with the implementation of the water reallocation scheme in 2000. These findings improve the understanding of how humans influence environmental systems and responses to environmental stresses.
人类与环境系统之间相互作用在千年尺度上的定量认识十分有限。本研究旨在通过模拟过去 2000 年中国西北黑河流域（HRB）人类和环境系统的用水量和净初级生产力（NPP）分配，揭示流域尺度上人类-环境系统的协同演变动态。我们采用社会水文框架将流域总蒸散量（ET）划分为人类和环境系统的 ET，并使用 Box-Lieth 模型估算人类和环境系统的 NPP，然后根据 NPP 随时间的变化率将人类-环境系统的协同演变过程分为不同阶段，并根据人类 NPP 对环境 NPP 变化的弹性变化来发现它们之间的权衡或协同关系。HRB 人类-环境系统的协同演变动态可分为四个时期：阶段 I（汉代-元代）：无发展，人类与环境之间几乎没有权衡；阶段 II（元代-清代）：缓慢农业发展，人类与环境之间的权衡较小，人类略有收益；阶段 III（清代-2000 年）：快速农业发展，人类与环境之间的权衡较大，人类收益较大；阶段 IV（2000 年-2010 年）：重新平衡，尽管协同作用很少发生，但人类收益较大，环境收益较小。本研究首次从权衡和协同的角度提供了一种定量方法来描述千年尺度上人类-环境系统的协同演变。2000 年实施水资源再分配方案后，人类与环境之间的关系从权衡转变为协同。这些发现提高了我们对人类如何影响环境系统以及对环境压力的响应的认识。
