Environmental Impacts of High Water Turbidity of the Niulan River to Dianchi Lake Water Diversion Project
Publication: Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 146, Issue 1
Abstract
The water quality of Dianchi Lake has deteriorated in the last 50 years due to excessive human activities. The Niulan River to Dianchi Lake Water Diversion Project (NRDLWDP) was implemented in 2013 to improve the water environment by enhancing the water exchange and transport in the lake. Since the start of its operation, the water quality of the lake has been improved except in flood seasons, when the turbidity of the water pumped from the water source of the project, the Deze Reservoir, exceeded the regulatory standards. The characteristics of flow and sediment transport near the intake and its upper reaches along the Niulan River and its tributary were first analyzed based on field observations in the Deze Reservoir. The effectiveness of the check dams and multi-water-level intake on reducing the sediment concentration of the intake was evaluated by using a three-dimensional model SCHISM (semi-implicit cross-scale hydroscience integrated system model). The results revealed that the original design of placing the intake near the riverbed in order to be able to take in water at low water levels overlooked the possibility that the very fine incoming sediments and the frequently occurring density currents tended to occur near the bottom where the intake is located. The construction of check dams can encourage the deposition processes upstream and thus decrease the sediment concentration or water turbidity at the intake. However, the reduced turbidity is still too high to meet the standard of 17.1 NTU. Therefore, a multi-water-level intake should be adopted to solve the sediment problems of the NRDLWDP because it can be fully adapted to the stratified characteristics of the sediment concentration at the intake of the Deze Reservoir. With the multi-water-level intake, the turbidity of the pumped water can be substantially reduced when compared with the current approach of a single-water-level intake and the construction of check dams.
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Data Availability Statement
The 3D model SCHISM used in the study is distributed via svn tags. The source code is available from http://columbia.vims.edu/schism/tags/. All data used in the study were provided by third parties named PowerChina Kunming Engineering Corporation Limited and Niulan River to Dianchi Lake Water Diversion Project Co., Ltd. Restrictions apply to the availability of these data, so data are available from the authors with the permission of the third parties.
Acknowledgments
This work was financially supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51639005) and the National Key R&D Program of China (No. 2017YFC0405202). The field measurements were carried out by the Shanghai Estuarine and Coastal Science Research Center. All the data about the Deze Reservoir, Niulan River and Gan River were collected from the Niulan River to Dianchi Lake Water Diversion Project Co., Ltd. and PowerChina Kunming Engineering Corporation Limited. The numerical simulations were performed on the Explore 100 cluster system of Tsinghua National Laboratory for Information Science and Technology. The authors would like to express their gratitude to the agencies and participants involved in the study.
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Published In
Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 146 • Issue 1 • January 2020
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©2019 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Nov 27, 2018
Accepted: May 28, 2019
Published online: Nov 7, 2019
Published in print: Jan 1, 2020
Discussion open until: Apr 7, 2020
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