Author(s): Shan He; Xin’An Yin
Linked Author(s):
Keywords: Environmental flow management; Flow regime; Reservoir capacity; Reservoir inflow; Water supply; Reservoir operation
Abstract: The environmental flow management scenarios in reservoir operation has been more and more detailed. A more detailed environmental flow management scenario is considered as a better choice for reducing flow regime alteration because it’s more capable to resembles the natural flow regime. However, ecological flow regime not only is influenced by environmental flow management scenarios, but also by three categories of parameters, including reservoir capacity, reservoir inflow and water supply quantity. Little consideration has been simultaneously given to the effect of the three parameters on flow regime alteration, and satisfied meet human and environmental flow needs at the same time. To compare the effect of environmental flow management scenarios on ecological flow regime, two environmental flow management scenarios are established, one is Fixed Minimum Flow (FMF), another is Four-period release approach (FP; more detailed). Moreover, this paper is not limited to a few site-specific studies and a hypothetical reservoir system is developed for numerical experiments. Some general conclusions can be drawn. When reservoir capacity is within a certain range, the flow regime alteration of FP e-flow management scenario is greater than that of FMF e-flow management scenario. When the reservoir inflow is smaller than the certain inflow or the water supply quantity is more than the certain supply quantity, the different value of flow regime alteration between FP and FMF eflow management scenario is almost zero. Thus, more detailed e-flow management scenario would not contribute to better ecological flow regime in these situations.
Year: 2018