Analysis of Hydrologic Regime Changes Caused by Dams in China
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 25, Issue 4
Abstract
Dam construction has significantly altered natural flow regimes and caused various environmental problems. This study analyzes hydrologic changes on a national scale using indicators of hydrologic alteration (IHA) and the range of variability approach (RVA) with data from 35 monitoring stations in China. The majority of these stations see reductions in extreme maximum flows, flood flows, low pulse duration, high pulse number and duration, and rise and fall rates, while the extreme minimum flow, flows from December through March, low pulse number, and number of reversals increase. In general, river hydrologic regimes in China are moderately altered by reservoir impoundment, with an average overall alteration degree of 52%. The mean alteration degree of IHAs ranges from 36% to 63%. Reservoir impoundment has a large impact on the number of reversals, the change rate, and extreme minimum flows, which have significant environmental effects and should be analyzed. These change characteristics could help provide a reference for scientific decision-making concerning water resource management in China.
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Acknowledgments
This work is supported by the Changjiang River Scientific Research Institute (CRSRI) Open Research Program (Program SN: CKWV2017531/KY), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41571202 and 41671512), the Youth Innovation Promotion Association of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. 2018370), and the Ph.D. scientific research start-up funds at Zhengzhou Normal University. The authors are grateful to the anonymous language editors for the valuable comments, suggestions, and meticulous revising to improve the manuscript. The authors thank three anonymous reviewers and the associate editor for valuable comments on a previous version of the paper.
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Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 25 • Issue 4 • April 2020
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©2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Received: Aug 8, 2018
Accepted: Oct 4, 2019
Published online: Feb 13, 2020
Published in print: Apr 1, 2020
Discussion open until: Jul 13, 2020
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