Fig. 1: Weakened coupling due to irrigation increases and deforestation.
From: Contrasting impacts of irrigation and deforestation on Lancang-Mekong River Basin hydrology
a Anthropogenic-induced vegetation changes during 1980–2010 in the Lancang-Mekong River Basin (LMRB) were grouped into three types: no irrigation change (non-Irrigation) and irrigation increases with or without deforestation (Irrigation(DF) or Irrigation(non-DF), respectively). b–e Consequently, the relationships between the aridity index and soil moisture (SM) and between the SM and groundwater storage (GW) were changed. The x symbol in (a) is shown at a 10 arcmin resolution for clear visualization, within which deforestation occurred in at least one out of four 5 arcmin cells. b Kendall’s rank correlation (r) in the LAND_1980 experiment (no land cover change since 1980). c Differences (∆) in r between the control (CTRL) experiment and LAND_1980 experiment. In (b, c), the color of each grid indicates the co-occurrence of two (∆)r values. r was computed from the annual values of aridity index, SM, and GW. The colors in (d) are tied to the levels of irrigation increases in (a), and the bars in (e) denote the mean and 95% confidence interval of the ∆r among the non-Irrigation, Irrigation(DF), and Irrigation(non-DF) grids.
