Estimation of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau runoff and its contribution to large Asian rivers

The Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau (QTP), named the Asian Water Towers, feeds more than 2.5 billion people in downstream regions. It is still unknown how much water outflows from this region owing to lack of observations. The main objective of this study is to clarify availability of water flowed out of this region and its contribution to large Asian rivers. The Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) products are evaluated with the help of observations of the QTP. In addition, a velocity-based routing method is embedded into the GLDAS model to route runoff products to the basin outlet in this study. The results show that the simulated dry season runoff in the GLDAS model is generally lower than the observed value, which is mainly because most hydrological models only consider the potential evapotranspiration (ET) when simulating ET, while ignoring the water constraint factor. Noah10_v2.0 has the highest precision at the QTP. For the monthly precipitation and runoff series, the relative error is within 5%, the correlation coefficient is greater than 0.90, and the Nash–Sutcliffe efficiencies are 0.95 and 0.76, respectively. Glacier melt runoff plays an important role in the QTP runoff, with a proportion of approximately 22%. It is relatively high in the Tarim River basin (83%), Syr Darya River and Amu Darya River basins (69%), and Indus River basin (60%). The contribution ratio also reaches 23% in the Yarlung Zangbo–Brahmaputra River and Ganges River basins, whereas it is the lowest in the Irrawaddy River basin (2%). According to the Noah10_v2.0 simulations, the mean annual runoff provided by the QTP exceeds 620 billion cubic metres, of which approximately 440 billion cubic metres flow out of the QTP and supply downstream regions of international rivers. The contribution ratio of the QTP runoff to the total runoff of its affected basins is approximately 16%. [Display omitted] •A velocity-based routing method is developed to route GLDAS runoff products.•Overall, Noah10_v2.0 has the highest precision at the QTP.•Runoff flow out of the QTP is 4.4 × 1011 m3.•It accounts for 16% of downstream runoff.•Glacier melt water takes up approximately 22% of the QTP runoff.