Studies on Water Resources and Water Use in an Arid Region in Attention with Historical Changes.

将农业大开发时期的水问题与元代的水问题进行了比较，以评估人类活动对黑河流域水资源短缺的影响。因此，人们依赖从高山流出的河水，包括冰川融化的水。冰芯分析表明，元代气温有逐渐变冷的趋势，这与目前气温变暖的现状形成了鲜明的对比。水文模型计算表明，由于山区冰川的快速增长，河流流量必然随变冷趋势而减少，这与变暖现状下的河流流量变化趋势截然不同。然而，无论是现在还是元代，人们都面临着同样严重的水资源短缺问题。这两个时期的水资源短缺主要是由中游地区的农业开发造成的。有人指出，一种被称为“生态移民”的政治行动正在加速该流域的水需求，并造成该流域进一步的水短缺。

The water issues at present, when agricultural development is intense, have been compared with those in the era of Yuan Dynasty, when many historical documents are available, in order to assess the effect of human activities for the water shortage found in the Heihe Basin, western China.Annual precipitation of the basin is as small as 50 to 150 mm in the middle and lower reaches where people are mostly staying. People are hence dependant on the river water which flows from high mountains including melt water of glaciers. Ice core analysis revealed that air temperature had become cooler and cooler in the Yuan Era, which is in good contrast with the warming present situation. Hydrological model calculation indicated that river discharge must have decreased with the cooling trend, owing to rapid growths of glaciers in the mountains, which is quite different from the trend of river discharge in the warming present situation. People, however is and had been facing similar severe water shortage problems both at present and in the Yuan Era. The water shortages in the both periods are concluded to be caused mainly by agricultural development in the middle reaches. It has been pointed out that a political action called "ecological migration" is accelerating water demands in the basin, and causing additional water shortages in the basin.