Decoupling climate and anthropogenic drivers of hydrological alteration in the Yellow River Basin: A hybrid deep learning framework

Study region Yellow River Basin, China. Study focus While the impacts of climate change and human activities on river systems are widely recognized, decoupling their highly non-linear interactions in heavily engineered basins remains computationally and analytically challenging. This study addresses this gap by proposing an advanced hybrid deep learning framework that integrates multiscale statistical diagnostics, the Range of Variability Approach (RVA), a Particle Swarm Optimization-Long Short-Term Memory (PSO-LSTM) model, and Random Forest (RF) algorithms. This framework incorporates rigorous convergence validation for PSO optimization, multi-method cross-validation for change-point detection, and comprehensive collinearity diagnostics. This integrated approach is employed to systematically evaluate longitudinal hydrological alterations and precisely attribute the drivers of runoff evolution from 1960 to 2020 across the basin. New hydrological insights Across the Yellow River Basin, abrupt runoff reductions and the magnitude of hydrological alteration amplify consistently from headwaters to estuary, superimposed on a basin-wide 11–14 year climatic periodicity. A distinct spatial dichotomy governs driving mechanisms: climatic factors dominate runoff generation in the upstream source area, whereas cumulative anthropogenic interventions – including reservoir regulation and large-scale vegetation restoration – drive over 80% of the runoff decline in the middle and lower reaches. Widespread vegetation greening and land-use transitions have fundamentally shifted the basin’s blue-green water balance toward enhanced evapotranspiration, dampening peak flows and exacerbating downstream water scarcity. Upstream inflow acts as the absolute controlling factor for downstream hydrology; after removing its cascading effect, local climatic drivers remain dominant in the source area but contribute only marginally to downstream runoff. These findings clarify the full-basin longitudinal pattern of hydrological alteration and its spatially heterogeneous drivers, addressing a long-standing knowledge gap for the Yellow River Basin. They provide direct, actionable scientific support for differentiated water resource management and targeted ecological restoration planning across reaches, underpinning sustainable water security strategies for this water-scarce, highly engineered basin.