Large observational bias on discharge in the Indus River since 1970s. Issue 1 (December 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Liu, Jingshi; Kang, Shichang; Hewitt, Kenneth; Hu, Linjin; Xianyu, Li
• Is Part Of: Scientific reports. Volume 8:Issue 1(2018)
• Page Start: 1
• Page End: 10
• Publication Date: 2018-12
• Subjects: Natural history -- Research -- Periodicals; Biology -- Research -- Periodicals; Physical sciences -- Research -- Periodicals; Earth sciences -- Research -- Periodicals; Environmental sciences -- Research -- Periodicals; 502.85
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-35600-3
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2045-2322

Abstract

Abstract The discharge of one of the world's largest river - Indus River was reported to be increasing that was not supported by the Karakoram (KK) glacier expansion. A major hydrometric bias was ignored, which seemed similar to the montage that the Himalayan glaciers would disappear. This study proposed a framework for quantifying the bias resulting from inaccurate data affecting hydrologic studies on the Indus. We constructed a statistical model by converting the rating curves of rivers into air temperature (T) – discharge (Q) curves from an adjacent catchment in China where flow measurement was carried out using a standard method. We found that most flow data for the Indus were much greater than the error limits of T-Q curves estimated by daily data, a greater bias occurred in recent decades when discharge increased, the higher the flow was, the larger the bias was. The estimated mean annual and maximum monthly bias was 22.5% and 210%, respectively. These biases indicated that discharge increase in the Indus probably resulted from the large errors of hydrometrics without a scientific basis. We suggested a montage bias was needed in the hydrologic science of KK's rivers that may strongly affect water resource management.