Complexity analysis of precipitation in changing environment in Chien River Basin, China

The hydrological processes influenced by the multiple factors of climate, geography, vegetation, and human activities are becoming more and more complex, which is an important characteristic of hydrological systems. The different complexity distributions of precipitation processes of the Chien River Basin (a sub-basin of the Minjiang Basin) in two periods (from 1952 to 1980, and from 1981 to 2009) are illustrated using the fractal based on the continuous wavelet transform (CWT). The results show that (1) at the basin scale the precipitation process in the latter period is more complex than in the former period; (2) the maximum value of the complexity distribution moved from the east to the middle; and (3) through analysis of the time-information and space-information concealed in this complexity change, the precipitation characteristics in the changing environment in the basin can be illuminated. This study could provide a reference for research on disaster pre-warning in changing environments and for integrated water resources management in the local basin.