Hydrological Impacts of Degrading Permafrost and Changing Climate

A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Water and Climate Change".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 February 2022) | Viewed by 9575

Special Issue Editors

State Key Laboratory of Frozen Soils Engineering, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China
Interests: degrading permafrost; warming climate; snow cover; impacts; carbon and nitrogen cycles; wildfires; hydrology; ecology; infrastructure; sustainable development
School of Environmental Studies and State Key Laboratory of Biogeology and Environmental Geology, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, China
Interests: permafrost hydrogeology; ecohydrology; hydrogeochemistry
GFZ German Research Center for Geosciences, Helmholtz Centre Potsdam, Section Geomicrobiology, 14473 Potsdam, Germany
Interests: geocryology; geomicrobiology; microbial ecology; bioinformatics
School of Water Resources and Environment, China University of Geosciences, Beijing 100083, China
Interests: under the conditions of climate change; the hydrological cycle and ecological and environmental changes caused by permafrost changes

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The overall foci of this special issue of the MDPI journal Water are: Evolution and degradation of permafrost; 2) Hydrological and eco-hydrological impacts from degrading permafrost; 3) Adaptation to and sustainability of hydrological and hydrogeologicla environment under a warming climate and with a degrading permafrost, and; 4) Methods and approaches for studying and assessing the degrading permafrost and its hydrological and hydrogeological impacts. Although there have been some major and rapid development in this field, and some related publications of both monographs, textbooks and journal and conference papers published almost daily, our special issue (Influences of Climate Change on Permafrost Hydrology) will work out on reviewing of the status quo and recent advances in this special field of permafrost hydrology and hydrogeology under a changing climate and in a degrading permafrost environment, which are also strongly affected by increasing human activities and natural processes and geoenvironmental factors, such as wildfires, rising sea level, and fault-induced earthquakes. This special issue of Water aims at attracting papers on the innovative research and methods at the cutting eges of the water sciences in cold regions, especially those conducted in the Arctic and Antarctic, Boreal and Australian, as well as the Third Pole with the core of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

Prof. Dr. Huijun Jin
Prof. Dr. Ziyong Sun
Dr. Sizhong Yang
Prof. Dr. Sihai Liang
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • climate change
  • human activities
  • changing permafrost
  • snow cover
  • hydrological impacts
  • ecology
  • ecohydrology
  • carbon pools
  • groundwater
  • supra-permafrost subaerial talik

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

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14 pages, 3947 KiB  
Article
Proposal of a New Method for Controlling the Thaw of Permafrost around the China–Russia Crude Oil Pipeline and a Preliminary Study of Its Ventilation Capacity
by Yapeng Cao, Guoyu Li, Gang Wu, Dun Chen, Kai Gao, Liyun Tang, Hailiang Jia and Fuqiang Che
Water 2021, 13(20), 2908; https://doi.org/10.3390/w13202908 - 16 Oct 2021
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 1940
Abstract
The China–Russia crude oil pipeline (CRCOP) has been in operation for over ten years. Field observation results have shown that a thaw bulb has developed around the CRCOP which expands at a rate of more than 0.8 m∙a−1 in depth. In view [...] Read more.
The China–Russia crude oil pipeline (CRCOP) has been in operation for over ten years. Field observation results have shown that a thaw bulb has developed around the CRCOP which expands at a rate of more than 0.8 m∙a−1 in depth. In view of the deficits of existing measures in mitigating permafrost thaw, a new control method is proposed based on active cooling. According to the relationship between total pressure loss and the driving force of natural ventilation, the wind speed in a U-shaped air-ventilation pipe around the CRCOP is calculated. By analyzing the theoretical calculation and numerical analysis results, it is found that the influence of thermal pressure difference on the natural ventilation of the structure can be negligible, and the influences of resistance loss along the pipe and local resistance loss in the pipe are similarly negligible. Exhaust elbows greatly improve the ventilation performance of the U-shaped air-ventilated pipe. This study developed a novel structure around warm-oil pipelines in permafrost for mitigating thaw settlement along the CRCOP and other similar projects across the world. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Hydrological Impacts of Degrading Permafrost and Changing Climate)
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Review

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34 pages, 1620 KiB  
Review
Permafrost Degradation and Its Hydrogeological Impacts
by Huijun Jin, Yadong Huang, Victor F. Bense, Qiang Ma, Sergey S. Marchenko, Viktor V. Shepelev, Yiru Hu, Sihai Liang, Valetin V. Spektor, Xiaoying Jin, Xinyu Li and Xiaoying Li
Water 2022, 14(3), 372; https://doi.org/10.3390/w14030372 - 26 Jan 2022
Cited by 34 | Viewed by 6593
Abstract
Under a warming climate, permafrost degradation has resulted in profound hydrogeological consequences. Here, we mainly review 240 recent relevant papers. Permafrost degradation has boosted groundwater storage and discharge to surface runoffs through improving hydraulic connectivity and reactivation of groundwater flow systems, resulting in [...] Read more.
Under a warming climate, permafrost degradation has resulted in profound hydrogeological consequences. Here, we mainly review 240 recent relevant papers. Permafrost degradation has boosted groundwater storage and discharge to surface runoffs through improving hydraulic connectivity and reactivation of groundwater flow systems, resulting in reduced summer peaks, delayed autumn flow peaks, flattened annual hydrographs, and deepening and elongating flow paths. As a result of permafrost degradation, lowlands underlain by more continuous, colder, and thicker permafrost are getting wetter and uplands and mountain slopes, drier. However, additional contribution of melting ground ice to groundwater and stream-flows seems limited in most permafrost basins. As a result of permafrost degradation, the permafrost table and supra-permafrost water table are lowering; subaerial supra-permafrost taliks are forming; taliks are connecting and expanding; thermokarst activities are intensifying. These processes may profoundly impact on ecosystem structures and functions, terrestrial processes, surface and subsurface coupled flow systems, engineered infrastructures, and socioeconomic development. During the last 20 years, substantial and rapid progress has been made in many aspects in cryo-hydrogeology. However, these studies are still inadequate in desired spatiotemporal resolutions, multi-source data assimilation and integration, as well as cryo-hydrogeological modeling, particularly over rugged terrains in ice-rich, warm (>−1 °C) permafrost zones. Future research should be prioritized to the following aspects. First, we should better understand the concordant changes in processes, mechanisms, and trends for terrestrial processes, hydrometeorology, geocryology, hydrogeology, and ecohydrology in warm and thin permafrost regions. Second, we should aim towards revealing the physical and chemical mechanisms for the coupled processes of heat transfer and moisture migration in the vadose zone and expanding supra-permafrost taliks, towards the coupling of the hydrothermal dynamics of supra-, intra- and sub-permafrost waters, as well as that of water-resource changes and of hydrochemical and biogeochemical mechanisms for the coupled movements of solutes and pollutants in surface and subsurface waters as induced by warming and thawing permafrost. Third, we urgently need to establish and improve coupled predictive distributed cryo-hydrogeology models with optimized parameterization. In addition, we should also emphasize automatically, intelligently, and systematically monitoring, predicting, evaluating, and adapting to hydrogeological impacts from degrading permafrost at desired spatiotemporal scales. Systematic, in-depth, and predictive studies on and abilities for the hydrogeological impacts from degrading permafrost can greatly advance geocryology, cryo-hydrogeology, and cryo-ecohydrology and help better manage water, ecosystems, and land resources in permafrost regions in an adaptive and sustainable manner. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Hydrological Impacts of Degrading Permafrost and Changing Climate)
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