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Numerical evaluation of flow regime changes induced by the Three Gorges Dam in the Middle Yangtze

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posted on 2019-01-14, 10:15 authored by Xijun Lai, Qiuhua LiangQiuhua Liang, Qun Huang, Jiahu Jiang, X.X. Lu
The full operation of the Three Gorges Dam (TGD) has altered the downstream natural flow regime. Flow regime changes have resulted in profound influences on the utility of water resources and hence a large area with a riparian ecosystem including China's two largest freshwater lakes in the Middle Yangtze. Because of complicated flow regimes in this large-scale river–lake system, the TGD's impacts on flow regimes are highly heterogeneous and require to be carefully addressed. To better understand them, we estimated water level and discharge changes solely induced by the TGD from 2006 to 2011 using a hydrodynamic model that facilitates the separation of the TGD's contribution to flow regimes. Results indicated that water regulation of the TGD caused profound impacts on the flow regimes of the Middle Yangtze. In the impoundment period from mid-September to October, rapid and significant decline of the water discharge downstream the TGD produced a prolonged dry season that occurred around 10 days earlier than before. Our analysis elucidated a pattern of recent changes in the flow regimes caused by the TGD. The findings are useful for addressing the TGD-induced environmental issues, optimizing the TGD's operation, and generating adaptive management strategy for the complex river–lake ecosystem.

Funding

This work is supported by National Key Basic Research Program of China (973 Program) (2012CB417000) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41071021).

History

School

  • Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering

Published in

Hydrology Research

Volume

47

Issue

S1

Pages

149 - 160

Citation

LAI, X. ... et al, 2016. Numerical evaluation of flow regime changes induced by the Three Gorges Dam in the Middle Yangtze. Hydrology Research, 47 (S1), pp.149-160.

Publisher

IWA Publishing © The authors

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

Acceptance date

2016-04-14

Publication date

2016-05-27

Notes

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0), which permits copying, adaptation and redistribution for non-commercial purposes, provided the contribution is distributed under the same licence as the original, and the original work is properly cited (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).

ISSN

0029-1277

eISSN

2224-7955

Language

  • en

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