Abstract
Abstract. The Tibetan Plateau is the source of most of Asia's major
rivers and has been called the Asian Water Tower. Detailed knowledge of its
hydrogeology is paramount to enable the understanding of groundwater
dynamics, which plays a vital role in headwater areas like the Tibetan
Plateau. Nevertheless, due to its remoteness and the harsh environment,
there is a lack of field survey data to investigate its hydrogeology. In
this study, borehole core lithology analysis, soil thickness measurement,
an altitude survey, hydrogeological surveys, and hydrogeophysical surveys
(e.g. magnetic resonance sounding – MRS, electrical resistivity tomography
– ERT, and transient electromagnetic – TEM) were conducted in the Maqu
catchment within the Yellow River source region (YRSR). The hydrogeological
surveys reveal that groundwater flows from the west to the east, recharging
the Yellow River. The hydraulic conductivity ranges from 0.2 to
12.4 m d−1. The MRS sounding results, i.e. water content and
hydraulic conductivity, confirmed the presence of an unconfined aquifer in
the flat eastern area. Based on TEM results, the depth of the Yellow River
deposits was derived at several places in the flat eastern area, ranging
from 50 to 208 m. The soil thickness measurements were done in the western
mountainous area of the catchment, where hydrogeophysical and
hydrogeological surveys were difficult to be carried out. The results
indicate that most soil thicknesses, except on the valley floor, are within 1.2 m
in the western mountainous area of the catchment, and the soil thickness
decreases as the slope increases. These survey data and results can
contribute to integrated hydrological modelling and water cycle analysis to
improve a full-picture understanding of the water cycle at the Maqu
catchment in the YRSR. The raw dataset is freely available at https://doi.org/10.17026/dans-z6t-zpn7 (Li et al., 2020a), and the
dataset containing the processed ERT, MRS, and TEM data is also available at
the National Tibetan Plateau Data Center with the link https://doi.org/10.11888/Hydro.tpdc.271221 (Li et al., 2020b).
Funder
Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities
Subject
General Earth and Planetary Sciences
Cited by
9 articles.
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