Assessment of the Multi-Objective Reservoir Operation for Maintaining the Turbidity Maximum Zone in the Yangtze River Estuary

Yang Yu, Peifang Wang, Chao Wang, Xun Wang and Bin Hu
Additional contact information
Yang Yu: Key Laboratory of Integrated Regulation and Resource Development on Shallow Lakes, Ministry of Education, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China
Peifang Wang: Key Laboratory of Integrated Regulation and Resource Development on Shallow Lakes, Ministry of Education, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China
Chao Wang: Key Laboratory of Integrated Regulation and Resource Development on Shallow Lakes, Ministry of Education, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China
Xun Wang: Key Laboratory of Integrated Regulation and Resource Development on Shallow Lakes, Ministry of Education, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China
Bin Hu: Key Laboratory of Integrated Regulation and Resource Development on Shallow Lakes, Ministry of Education, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China

IJERPH, 2018, vol. 15, issue 10, 1-19

Abstract: The construction of multifunction reservoirs is important for flood control, agriculture irrigation, navigation, and hydropower generation, but dam construction will inevitably affect the downstream flow and sediment regimes, which can cause some environmental and ecological consequences. Therefore, this paper aims to propose a framework for assessing the multiobjective reservoir operation model based on environmental flows for sustaining the suspended sediment concentration (SSC) requirements in the turbidity maximum zone (TMZ). The Yangtze River Estuary was used as a case study. Through using an analytical model, a quantitative correlation between SSC and water flow rate was established. Then, the quantitative correlation and the SSC requirements were applied to determine the environmental flows for the estuarine TMZ. Subsequently, a multiobjective reservoir operation model was developed for the Three Gorges Reservoir (TGR), and an improved nondominated sorting genetic algorithm III based on elimination operator was applied to the model. An uncertainty analysis and a comparative analysis were used to assess the model’s performance. The results showed that the proposed multiobjective reservoir operation model can reduce ecological deficiency under wet, normal, and dry years by 33.65%, 35.95%, and 20.98%, with the corresponding hydropower generation output lost by 3.37%, 3.88%, and 2.95%, respectively. Finally, we discussed ecological satiety rates under optimized and practical operation of the TGR in wet, normal, and dry years. It indicated that the multiobjective-optimized runoff performs better at maintaining the TMZ in the Yangtze River Estuary than practical runoff. More importantly, the results can offer guidance for the management of the TGR to improve the comprehensive development and protection of the estuarine ecological environment.

Keywords: multiobjective reservoir operation; environmental flows; Three Gorges Reservoir; turbidity maximum zone; suspended sediment concentration; Yangtze River Estuary; improved nondominated sorting genetic algorithm III (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/10/2118/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/10/2118/ (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:jijerp:v:15:y:2018:i:10:p:2118-:d:172164

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

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