Author(s): Li Gu; Zulin Hua
Linked Author(s): Zulin Hua
Keywords: Estuary; Ecosystem; Freshwater demand; Calculation
Abstract: Freshwater supplement is of great importance to the existence and maintenance of estuarine ecosystem. Two methods of determining ecological freshwater demand to the estuaries and adjacent coastal area in Liaodong Bay of China are presented in this paper. One is the correlation analysis method and the other is numerical method based on three-dimensional hydrodynamic and salinity model. In the first method, the correlation is established between the freshwater inflow to the sea and the salinity of estuarine area in Liaodong Bay, and then ecological water demand of estuary is calculated by adopting a suitable salinity control standard value. In the second method, the salinity fields of the numerical simulation in different scenarios are computed. The effective area EAi with the salinities below the salinity control standard value in each scenario are summarized and compared with the area A0 of dense fish eggs or dense fish larvae from the actual biological spatial distribution information of Liaodong Bay. The runoff of rivers in the scenario with the area EAi closest to the area A0 is selected as the ecological water demand in the estuaries of Liaodong Bay.
Year: 2009