Hydrologic Alteration at the Upper and Middle Part of the Yangtze River, China: Towards Sustainable Water Resource Management Under Increasing Water Exploitation

Rawshan Ali, Alban Kuriqi, Shadan Abubaker and Ozgur Kisi
Additional contact information
Rawshan Ali: College of Hydraulic and Environmental Engineering, China Three Gorges University, Yichang 443002, China
Shadan Abubaker: Department of Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering, Knowledge University, Erbil 44001, Kurdistan, Iraq
Ozgur Kisi: School of Technology, IIia State University, Tbilisi 0162, Georgia

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 19, 1-16

Abstract: The human influence on the river ecosystem has increased in recent years to feed the growing demand for water to communities by constructing different water structures. It is essential to understand the potential impacts of water structures on river hydrologic regimes. Thus, this study investigates the influence of the cascade dams located upstream of the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River on the river ecosystem. The study was carried out for the period 2003–2015 for both Cuntan and Miaohe stations. The analysis was conducted considering two periods, pre-impact; before the dam construction and post-impact; after the dam construction. The assessment was carried out using “Indicators of Hydrologic Alteration.” The results of this study revealed that the cascade dams built upstream of Three Gorges Dam has both positive and negative impacts at both stations. Flows were found to have positive impacts in July while low in October for both stations. The 1-day minimum flows were found to decrease by 7% over Miaohe Station while the 1-day maximum was decreased up to 2% in Cuntan. Overall, the results of the study indicate that there are undesirable impacts which should be adjusted to maintain the river ecosystem at an acceptable level compared to its natural state. It is expected that the findings of the study can guide water managers to adjust the hydropower operation sustainably.

Keywords: flow regime; hydrologic alteration; indicators of hydrologic alteration; range of variability approach; river conservation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/19/5176/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/19/5176/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:19:p:5176-:d:269358

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().