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Are glaciers actually critical for basin runoff in the northern Qilian Mountains, Northwest China?
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DOI：10.1016/j.accre.2026.05.018.png)
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Abstract
En 中文
The narrative of glaciers as a water resource has led to the perception that glaciers are critical to basin runoff, especially in arid regions. Substantial discrepancies exist among quantifying the contribution of glacier meltwater to basin runoff for the same basin. To address this knowledge gap, multiple precipitation datasets were evaluated to identify the most suitable one, based on which a threshold-constrained framework was established to evaluate glacier meltwater contributions across basins on the northern slope of the Qilian Mountains (QM). The stability and reliability of the framework were verified through sensitivity analyses. The results demonstrate that the contribution of glaciers to annual runoff did not exceed 2.6%, 1.4%, 10.3%, 22.9% and 17.9% in the upper reaches of the Shiyanghe (URSYH), Heihe (URHH), Beidahe (URBDH), Shulehe (URSLH) and Danghe (URDH) River basins, respectively. However, previous studies have estimated their contributions to be 4.1%‒6.1%, 2.7%‒3.5%, 12.1%‒23.1%, 23.3%‒51.2% and 46.8%‒47.8%, respectively, all higher than the upper threshold derived in this study, suggesting that the contribution of glacier meltwater to runoff at the mountain outlets on the northern slope of the QM may have been overestimated. It is observed that annual precipitation in glacierised areas of the URSYH, URHH, URBDH, URSLH and URDH River basins was remarkably higher than that in non-glacierised areas. However, since glacierised areas occupy only a small fraction of each basin (0.32%‒4.37%), the contribution of precipitation in glacierised areas to total basin precipitation is correspondingly limited (0.34%‒5.27%). This study provides important guidance for water resource management in the Hexi Corridor and offers a reference framework for glacier meltwater contribution evaluations in other glacierised regions worldwide.
Keywords:
Evaluation of precipitation datasets
Glacier meltwater
Basin runoff
The Qilian Mountains
Overestimation
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