Fig. 1 Spatial distribution of 170 meteorological stations and 45 third-level water resources areas over the Yangtze River basin

Fig. 2 Time series of annual (a) and 30-year annual mean (b) near-surface air temperature anomalies (relative to 1986-2005) from CMIP5 models averaged over the globe during 2006-2100 under RCP4.5

Fig. 3 Taylor diagrams of bias corrected outputs of 13 models in simulating annual precipitation (a) and potential evapotranspiration (b) in the Yangtze River basin (A-M, climate models, in the same order as Table 1; N, multi-model ensemble mean)

Fig. 4 Spatial patterns of annual mean precipitation(a, b) and calculated potential evapotranspiration (c, d) over the Yangtze River basin during 1976-2005 (a, c: observations; b, d: multi-model ensemble mean)

Fig. 5 The IVS of annual precipitation (left) and potential evapotranspiration (right) over the Yangtze River basin during 1976-2005 simulated by the models

Fig. 6 The distribution of monthly precipitation (a) and potential evapotranspiration (b) over the Yangtze River basin during 1976-2005

Fig. 7 Nash coefficients of two-parameter water balance model in calibration and validation period for monthly runoff simulation in 130 data available basins (a) the calibration period, (b) the validation period

Fig. 8 Nash coefficients of the target basins when the number of reference basins changes from 1 to 10 for different spatial proximity methods (a) and comparison of Nash coefficients of 20 data available basins over the Yangtze River basin between utilizing parameter regionalization or not (b) (The horizontal line in each box indicates the median, the boxes indicating interquartile model spread (25th and 75th), and the whiskers show the 5th and 95th inter quartile)

Fig. 9 The distribution of monthly runoff over the Yangtze River basin during 1976-2005

Fig. 10 Annual and seasonal precipitation, potential evapotranspiration and runoff changes over the Yangtze River basin under two warming scenarios compared to the reference period (The horizontal line in each box indicates the median, the boxes indicating interquartile model spread (25th and 75th), and the whiskers show the 5th and 95th inter-quartile)

Fig. 11 Annual precipitation, potential evapotranspiration and runoff changes over the Yangtze River basin under two warming scenarios compared to the reference period based on multi-model ensemble mean

Fig. 12 Spring precipitation, potential evapotranspiration and runoff changes over the Yangtze River basin under two warming scenarios compared to the reference period based on multi-model ensemble mean

Fig. 13 Summer precipitation, potential evapotranspiration and runoff changes over the Yangtze River basin under two warming scenarios compared to the reference period based on multi-model ensemble mean

Fig. 14 Autumn and winter runoff changes over the Yangtze River basin under two warming scenarios compared to the reference period based on multi-model ensemble mean