Using steel slag concrete (SSC) as a pile material not only promotes industrial waste recycling but also improves ground conditions through its distinct hydrological and chemical properties. This study investigated the hydrological processes of SSC piles under no-load conditions, offering new insights into pile-soil interactions. A novel visualization test device was developed to continuously monitor water migration, pore water pressure fluctuations, and soil disturbance over six months. Macro-scale observations and micro-scale analyses were conducted to elucidate physical and chemical reactions at the pile-soil interface. Compared to ordinary concrete piles, SSC piles demonstrated superior expansion and drainage capabilities, characterized by enhanced radial and vertical water flow, increased surface porosity, and the formation of a distinct interface layer enriched with calcium carbonate and cementitious hydration products. These improvements facilitate effective water distribution and drainage while reinforcing the pile-soil bond, thereby contributing to a more robust composite system for ground improvement. This integrated approach and its findings offer valuable contributions to the broader field of soil-pile interactions by detailing the multi-scale mechanisms governing the hydrological behavior and interface evolution of composite foundation systems.

Understanding the slope hydrology and failure processes of rainfall-induced landslides is key to landslide early warning; the heterogeneity of soil (e.g., grain-size distribution in different layers) can markedly affect rainfall infiltration and slope failure patterns. However, the hydrological and failure processes of heterogeneous slopes layered by different soil groups have received little attention. In this study, we use a typical landslide soil composition of rainfall-induced landslide in fault zones as a prototype and via flume experiments to simulate the hydrological evolution, failure processes, and patterns under rainfall conditions on material heterogeneity slopes with a combination of colluvial deposit and fault gouge. Our results showed that rainfall-induced slope settlement and rapid saturation of shallow layers of colluvial deposits led to the occurrence of layer-by-layer shallow flow-slides. The spatial variability of infiltration led to the generation of a relatively dry-wet interface in deeper layers, causing differential changes in the mechanical properties of the fault gouge; this was conducive to the formation of a steep landslide back wall, perched water table in the shallow layer of the fault gouge, and a rapid increase in porewater pressure, which triggered deep sliding, with a change in the failure pattern to a retrogressive mode. There was a strong linear correlation between the displacement rate before slope instability and the Arias intensity (IA) of the seismic signal; an abrupt change and rapid increase in IA may indicate that the slope entered an accelerating creep stage before failure. The results of this study provide a physical basis for related numerical simulation research and a reference for landslide early warning based on seismic signals.

Due to the great influences of both climate warming and human activities, permafrost on the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau (QXP) has been undergoing considerable degradation. Continuous degradation of plateau permafrost dramatically modifies the regional water cycle and hydrological processes, affecting the hydrogeological conditions, and ground hydrothermal status in cold regions. Permafrost thawing impacts the ecological environment, engineering facilities, and carbon storage functions, releasing some major greenhouse gases and exacerbating climate change. Despite the utilization of advanced research methodologies to investigate the changing hydrological processes and the corresponding influencing factors in permafrost regions, there still exist knowledge gaps in multivariate data, quantitative analysis of permafrost degradation's impact on various water bodies, and systematic hydrological modeling on the QXP. This review summarizes the main research methods in permafrost hydrology and elaborates on the impacts of permafrost degradation on regional precipitation distribution patterns, changes in surface runoff, expansion of thermokarst lakes/ponds, and groundwater dynamics on the QXP. Then, we discuss the current inadequacies and future research priorities, including multiple methods, observation data, and spatial and temporal scales, to provide a reference for a comprehensive analysis of the hydrological and environmental effects of permafrost degradation on the QXP under a warming climate.

Climate change has resulted in significant changes to subsurface hydrological processes in permafrost regions. Lateral subsurface flow (LSF) represents the dominant flow path in hillslope runoff generation. However, the contributions of runoff components to LSF, such as precipitation, soil water, and ground ice, remain unclear. This study aimed to characterize LSF generation processes in an alpine permafrost hillslope of Northeastern Tibetan Plateau, using stable isotopes and total dissolved solids (TDS) as tracers. Samples of precipitation and soil water [including mobile soil water and supra-permafrost groundwater (SPG)], LSF, and ground ice samples were collected from different thaw depths of the active layer in 2021. The results showed that LSF came directly from SPG in the active layer. Two-source partitioning using delta H-2 or TDS suggested that the dominant source of LSF gradually shifted from ground ice during the initial thaw period to precipitation with increasing thaw depths. The contributions of ground ice to LSF were 70 % and 30 % at thaw depths of 0-30 cm and >30 cm, respectively. The results of three-source partitioning indicated ground ice, precipitation, and SPG to be the dominant sources of LSF at thaw depths of 0-30 cm, 30-150 cm, and >150 cm, respectively. SPG largely regulates hillslope hydrologic processes at thaw depths >= 250 cm. Therefore, with continuing climate warming, SPG will play an increasing role in hydrological processes of alpine meadow permafrost hillslopes.

The source region of the Yellow River (SRYR) in the northeastern Tibetan Plateau is critical for supplying water resources to downstream areas. However, streamflow in the SRYR declined despite a slight increase in precip-itation during the past few decades. The SRYR experienced significant frozen ground degradation with climate warming, but how frozen ground degradation influences runoff remains unclear. This study investigated the changes of the precipitation-runoff relationship using the double-mass curve method and examined the impact of long-term spatiotemporal changes in frozen ground on the water balance components using the geomorphology -based eco-hydrological model (GBEHM). The results showed that the precipitation-runoff relationship changed significantly since 1989 in the SRYR from 1960 to 2019. In the same period, the areal mean value of the maximum thickness of seasonally frozen ground (MTSFG) decreased by 0.10 m/10a and the areal mean active layer thickness (ALT) of permafrost increased by 0.06 m/10a. Besides, 21.0 % of the entire SRYR has degraded from permafrost to seasonally frozen ground (SFG). Runoff decreased mainly in the region with elevation below 4200 m, where the evapotranspiration increase exceeded the precipitation increase. Frozen ground degradation significantly altered the hydrological processes, which is reflected by the increased subsurface runoff and the decreased surface runoff. The total water storage increased by 2.9 mm/a in the permafrost region due to the increase in active layer thickness and by 5.7 mm/a in the degradation region where permafrost completely thawed during 1960-2019. The runoff seasonality was also altered, being indicated as an increase in winter runoff. These findings help provide a better understanding of the runoff change under climate warming in permafrost-affected regions and provide insights into future water resources management in the Yellow River basin under the climate warming.

Hydrological processes in mid-latitude mountainous regions are greatly affected by changes in vegetation cover that induced by the climate change. However, studies on hydrological processes in mountainous regions are limited, be-cause of difficulties in building and maintaining basin-wide representative hydrological stations. In this study, a new method, remote sensing technology for monitoring river discharge by combining satellite remote sensing, un-manned aerial vehicles and hydrological surveying, was used for evaluating the runoff processes in the Changbai Mountains, one of the mid-latitude mountainous regions in the eastern part of Northeast China. Based on this method, the impact of vegetation cover change on hydrological processes was revealed by combining the data of hydrological processes, meteorology, and vegetation cover. The results showed a decreasing trend in the monitored river discharge from 2000 to 2021, with an average rate of -5.13 x 105 m3 yr-1. At the monitoring mainly influenced by precipitation, the precipitation-induced proportion of changes in river discharge to annual average river discharge and its change significance was only 6.5 % and 0.23, respectively, showing the precipitation change was not the cause for the decrease in river discharge. A negative impact of evapotranspiration on river discharge was found, and the decrease in river discharge was proven to be caused by the increasing evapotranspiration, which was induced by the drastically increased vegetation cover under a warming climate. Our findings suggested that increases in vege-tation cover due to climate change could reshape hydrological processes in mid-latitude mountainous regions, leading to an increase in evapotranspiration and a subsequent decrease in river discharge.

Cold season air warming was more rapid than warm season air warming on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP). However, the effect of this asymmetrical seasonal air warming on permafrost hydrological changes has not been fully understood. This study applied a distributed cryospheric hydrological model to evaluate the effects of different seasonal air warming on the changes in frozen soil and hydrological processes in a typical catchment, the source region of the Lancang River on the eastern QTP. The results show that the area of permafrost reduced by 14.0%. The maximum frozen depth of seasonally frozen ground (MFDSFG) decreased at 5.0 cm decade(-1), and the active layer thickness (ALT) of permafrost increased by 3.3 cm decade(-1). Controlled experiments illustrate that cold season air warming dominated the reduction in MFDSFG which caused the liquid soil moisture increase in seasonally frozen ground, and warm season air warming primarily determined the increase in ALT which enhanced the liquid soil moisture in permafrost. Cold season air warming had a greater effect on runoff than warm season air warming because it dominated the permafrost degradation into seasonally frozen ground. In the region where permafrost degraded into seasonally frozen ground, both the cold and warm season air warming contributed to the soil liquid water increase, and the cold season warming had a greater effect due to its more important role in thermal degradation of permafrost. The findings of this study reveal different complex impacts of cold and warm season air warming on permafrost hydrological changes on the QTP.

The representation of snow is a crucial aspect of land-surface modelling, as it has a strong influence on energy and water balances. Snow schemes with multiple layers have been shown to better describe the snowpack evolution and bring improvements to soil freezing and some hydrological processes. In this paper, the wider hydrological impact of the multi-layer snow scheme, implemented in the ECLand model, was analyzed globally on hundreds of catchments. ERA5-forced reanalysis simulations of ECLand were coupled to CaMa-Flood, as the hydrodynamic model to produce river discharge. Different sensitivity experiments were conducted to evaluate the impact of the ECLand snow and soil freezing scheme changes on the terrestrial hydrological processes, with particular focus on permafrost. It was found that the default multi-layer snow scheme can generally improve the river discharge simulation, with the exception of permafrost catchments, where snowmelt-driven floods are largely underestimated, due to the lack of surface runoff. It was also found that appropriate changes in the snow vertical discretization, destructive metamorphism, snow-soil thermal conductivity and soil freeze temperature could lead to large river discharge improvements in permafrost by adjusting the evolution of soil temperature, infiltration and the partitioning between surface and subsurface runoff.

The hydrological properties of the active soil layer are the key parameters that regulate soil water-heat-solute migration and alter hydrologic cycles in a permafrost region. To date, much remains unknown about the interaction mechanism between permafrost degradation and eco-hydrological processes in the permafrost regions of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP). In this study, the soil texture, soil hydrological properties, the soil moisture status, and the hydrothermal processes were measured and analyzed in different degradation degrees of alpine meadow soils on the QTP. The results showed a close relationship between soil hydrological properties and soil physicochemical properties. Freeze-thaw cycles changed the physicochemical and hydrological properties, that is, frequent freeze-thaw cycles promote to permafrost degradation in terms of soil basis properties of active layer. In addition, vegetation on the ground delayed the degradation of frozen soil. The actual available soil water content (SWC) in the root layer was a key factor in the ecohydrological process. The actual effective SWC in the root layers of different alpine meadows was ranked as follows: non-degraded meadow (NDM) > moderately-degraded meadow (MDM) > seriously degraded meadow (SDM) (1.8-5.0% at NDM and 0.0-4.2% at SDM). In addition, the weak soilpermeability in an SDM intensified the deficiency of the available SWC, thereby increasingthe difficulty of ecological restoration. This study provides a basis for ecological environmental protection in permafrost regions and provides a hydrological process model for cold regions under future climate change scenarios.

Changes in the hydrological regimes of Arctic rivers could affect the thermohaline circulation of the Arctic Ocean. In this study, we analysed spatiotemporal variations in temperature and precipitation in the Ob River Basin regions during 1936-2017 based on data from the Global Precipitation Climatology Center. Changes in discharge and response to climate change were examined based on monthly observed data during the same period. It is indicated the Ob River Basin experienced significant overall rapid warming and wetting (increased precipitation) in the study period, with average rates of 0.20 degrees C (10 year(-1)) and 5.3 mm (10 year(-1)), respectively. The annual spatial variations of temperature and precipitation showed different scales in different regions. The discharge in spring and winter significantly increased at a rate of 384.1 and 173.1 m(3)/s (10 year(-1)), respectively. Hydrograph separation indicated infiltration and supported that deep flow paths increased the contribution of groundwater to base flow. Meanwhile, the variation of the ratio of Q(max)/Q(min) suggested that the basin storage and the mechanism of discharge generation have significantly changed. The hydrological processes were influenced by changes of permafrost in a certain in the Ob River Basin. An increase in the recession coefficient (RC) implies that the permafrost degradation in the basin due to climate warming affected hydrological processes in winter. Permafrost degradation affected the Q(max)/Q(min) more significantly in the warm season than RC due to the enhanced infiltration that converted more surface water into groundwater in the cold season. The impact of precipitation on discharge, including surface flow and base flow, was more significant than temperature at the annual and seasonal scales in the Ob River Basin. The base flow was more obviously influenced by temperature than surface flow. The results of this study are significant for analyses of the basin water budget and freshwater input to the Arctic Ocean.