Potential evapotranspiration changes in Lancang River Basin and Yarlung Zangbo River Basin, southwest China

Understanding potential evapotranspiration (PET) changes under climate change is of great importance for hydrological research. The trends of PET changes and their driving forces were investigated in the Lancang (LRB) and Yarlung Zangbo (YRB) river basins, southwest China, using diagnosis graphs and the Mann-Kendall test. Analysis of variance was applied to examine the contribution of different climatic variables to PET. The results show that: (i) there was a statistically significant increase in PET in the period of 1957–2015 in the LRB, while it showed a markedly decreasing trend in the YRB; (ii) PET in both basins is fairly sensitive to wind speed, relative humidity, solar radiation and maximum air temperature, and the interactions between wind speed and relative humidity are also important; and (iii) the increase in PET in the LRB is due mainly to the increase in maximum air temperature and decrease in relative humidity, while declines in wind speed and solar radiation are the main reasons for the decrease in PET in the YRB.