RELATIONS BETWEEN GRACE-DERIVED WATER STORAGE CHANGE WITH PRECIPITATION AND TEMPERATURE OVER KAIDU RIVER BASIN, CHINA

Abstract. Water is essential for human survival and well-being, and important to virtually all sectors of the economy. In the aridzone of China’s west, water resource is the controlling factor on the distribution of human settlements. Water cycle variation is sensitive to temperature and precipitation, which are influenced by human activity and climate change. Satellite observations of Earth’s time-variable gravity field from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission, which enable direct measurement of changes of total terrestrial water storage, could be useful to aid this modelling. In this pilot study, TWS change from 2002 to 2013 obtained from GRACE satellite mission over the Kaidu River Basin in Xinjiang, China is presented. Precipitation and temperature data from in-situ station and National Satellite Meteorological Centre of China (NSMC) are analysed to examine whether there is a statistically significant correlation between them.