Impact of tropical cyclone precipitation on fluvial discharge in the Lancang‒Mekong river basin
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Tropical cyclone precipitation (TCP) and associated floods have caused widespread damage globally. Despite growing evidence of significant changes in the activity of tropical cyclones (TCs) in recent decades, the influence of TCs on regional flooding remains poorly understood. Here, we distinguish the role of TCs in fluvial discharge by explicitly simulating discharge with and without observed TCP in the Lancang‒Mekong River Basin, a vulnerable TC hotspot. Our results show that TCs typically contributed approximately 30% of annual maximum discharge during 1967–2015. However, for rare and high-magnitude floods (long return periods), TCs are the dominant driver of extreme discharge events. Moreover, spatial changes in TC-induced discharge are closely related to changes in TCP and TC tracks, showing increasing trends upstream but decreasing trends downstream. This study reveals significant spatiotemporal differences in TC-induced discharges and provides a methodology for quantifying the role of TCs in fluvial discharge.
Date Issued
2025-04-28
Date Acceptance
2025-04-06
Citation
Geophysical Research Letters, 2025, 52 (8)
ISSN
0094-8276
Publisher
Wiley
Journal / Book Title
Geophysical Research Letters
Volume
52
Issue
8
Copyright Statement
© 2025 The Author(s). This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.
License URL
Identifier
10.1029/2024GL113199
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
e2024GL113199
Date Publish Online
2025-04-15