Climate-driven changes in hydrological and hydrodynamic responses in the Yarlung Tsangpo River

Abstract The High Asia region supplies a substantial part of the water demands in South Asia, playing an important role in maintaining ecosystem stability both locally and downstream. The Yarlung Tsangpo River (the upper Brahmaputra) basin in High Asia is especially sensitive to climate change; however, climate-driven hydrological changes and hydrodynamic processes are not well understood. In this study, hydrological and 2-D hydrodynamic numerical modelling were combined, providing a better representation of basin runoff and wetland fluvial dynamics with improved spatial resolution over the sparsely gauged Yarlung Tsangpo River, and the combination provided reliable results for watershed and wetland analysis. From 1979 to 2019, significant upward trends (p